MusicTale
by Delta Rune 133
Summary: Twin siblings Frisk and Chara thought they were the only ones with theme songs. And then they fell into the Underground, where everybody has theme songs. But the world Underground is not nice, perhaps even worse than the surface... Inspired by Underfell. Updates biweekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Frisk's theme song is Hopes and Dreams.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hi guys! Delta here, with another Undertale fanfiction. Remember, Undertale belongs to Toby Fox, and I don't own the idea of Underfell, either.**

 **This one updates weekly, like my other one. I was inspired by the idea that Megalovania was Chara's theme song, not Sans'. And I've always been a strong supporter of Chara being good, despite never having watched Judgement Boy's video. So this is what came out of it. But enough intro. Time for the first chapter.**

Chapter 1: Chara

The fall was much, much more painful than I had expected it to be. Then again, being 10 year olds, we "didn't know a damn thing about the world." Or at least that's what our parents said. But the fall knocked the wind out of me, and probably did for my twin sibling too. We had fallen down—or, more specifically, jumped down—together. And even if we hadn't jumped, we both knew that we would have stayed together if one of us had fallen down. It was like an untold rule between us.

Frisk and I were very close, even for twin siblings. We had to be, considering the environment we grew up in. But I didn't want to talk about that. I had enough bad memories from that place. And if you really want to know more... well, maybe Frisk will tell you. I don't think I can muster up the courage. Frisk was always better at that kind of stuff anyway.

But we weren't quite the same person. I had often made jokes about how I was the more evil of the two. My theme song was evil, too. And Frisk was quite literally the paragon of light. Their theme song was so happy, too. And they managed to be optimistic, no matter what happened. I had no idea how they were able to do that. They seemed so hopeful, even after our miserable lives.

Meanwhile, I was the paragon of darkness. My theme song literally sounded like bugs crawling all over me. Or at least that's what I thought. Frisk thought it sounded pretty epic, but I couldn't tell if they were just trying to be nice or if they really thought it was cool. I guessed they were just trying to be nice to me. I was a bit envious of Frisk's theme song, too. It was so happy. And it was exactly three minutes, on the dot. It helped give us a sense of time when we were waiting for things.

Frisk and I really were different people, but we loved each other so much. I don't really have words to describe what I felt for Frisk. We just had a bond. And we could sometimes predict each other, too. They knew what I would probably do in a situation, and I knew what they would do. We were that close.

The fall still hurt a lot, though. I was surprised we had survived. It looked like hundreds if not thousands of feet. There was no possible way to climb back up. I tried to take my focus off the pain by guessing how many bones in my body were broken. For some reason, that didn't seem to help. Surely the fall should have killed us. I mean, we weren't planning to survive. I realized that of all the people who had gone missing in the past probably survived too. After all, there weren't any bodies here. Wait...

Suddenly, I was struck by a sudden thought. What if Frisk had died? That was impossible, right. I would feel something. We had a bond. There was no way that Frisk would be able to die without me noticing something. I tried rolling over to look at them, but their body seemed as frozen as mine did. Clearly, they were in intense pain too. That, or they were dead. But if every other human that fell had survived, surely Frisk had, too? I had no way of telling, since I couldn't get up and move.

I was about to try rolling over to them, despite the pain, when a wonderful song filled the air.

The song was music to my ears. Literally. It sounded the best it ever had been. It was Frisks theme song, of course, and like always, it was so happy despite the circumstances. It filled me with hope. And now I knew Frisk was alive. There was no way they could play their theme song if they were dead. It was our way of comforting each other. Well theirs was to comfort me, mine wasn't really happy enough to comfort anyone. It just sounded good. Or at least that's what Frisk said.

The song abruptly cut off, and I realized what Frisk wanted me to do. I started playing my own theme song. And it was pretty good, I had to admit. Not nearly as good as Frisk said it was, and not even comparable to Frisk's theme song, but it was pretty good. Frisk was delusional to think that my theme song was actually better than theirs. Theirs filled me with good emotions. Mine filled them with the feeling of sin. Or at least that's what I guessed.

I can't really explain how I played my theme song. It was kind of like me pulling on a little string in my mind. It just came naturally to me—and to Frisk. We were apparently the only ones that had theme songs. It was pretty cool, knowing that we had something special. Something nobody else could have. I wanted to hear Frisk's theme song again, I realized. It always filled me with hope. And we both needed hope in a situation like this.

So I cut off my theme song, and after a couple seconds, Frisk's started playing again. I lay down for a minute, just listening to the music. It was good to know that even if I couldn't die, Frisk was right here with me. We'd be together forever. That's what we'd promised each other, back when we were six and learned to not trust anyone but each other.

Then I tried getting up. A sudden stab of pain jolted through me, but I persevered. I slowly crawled to my feet, wincing all the way. It didn't seem like anything was broken, but my left wrist was definitely sprained. That was okay. Frisk and I had had worse pain in the past. The rest of me seemed bruised, but aside from that fine. I just needed some rest. I hobbled over to where Frisk was, and helped pull them to their feet.

"I think I'm okay," said Frisk. "Are you?"

"Yeah," I responded. "How did we survive?"

"I don't know."

"Are you sure you're fine?" I asked.

"I'm fine enough to play my theme song, and so are you," countered Frisk. "Come on. I wonder where that door leads to."

I laughed. That was Frisk, always staying optimistic, always believing we could do it despite any obstacles. We held onto each other and walked. I noticed that Frisk leaned a little bit on me, and I wondered how badly they were actually hurt. I had long since learned that Frisk wasn't entirely honest when it came to how bad their injuries were. I just hoped they didn't have any damage that wouldn't heal in a little bit. If this strange place was anything like the surface, we would need to be in our top condition at all times. We couldn't afford to be weak.

We hobbled across the room and viewed the large door in front of us. It was menacing, somehow. It seemed like the entrance to some devilish place which would be even worse than our home. I certainly hoped not. Our home was more than bad enough. But at the same time, the door seemed to invite us, saying "Come join the fun." Because that didn't sound threatening at all.

As Frisk and I walked, I noticed the symbolism here. Even though we were badly injured, we were still together. We always would be, together as twins. And we always would find a way to keep persevering. Frisk would make sure of it. They were always so good at doing that. They probably hoped that we'd get out of here, or even find a better home. I just hoped that we wouldn't die or get tortured. Because looking at the door, that's all I felt would happen.

"Turn off your theme song," I told Frisk. While I loved the music, there was no way we could afford to have someone hear our song. It was far too risky. A couple seconds later, Frisk's theme song stopped. I knew they probably wanted it just as much as I did, but we trusted each other completely. They knew if I said something, it was probably important. And I would do the same for them, of course. But I noticed things more often. I was the more perceptive of the two, and I could say that without shame. It was true.

We entered the large door, and were greeted by a desolate scene. Rubble had built up all around us, seemingly enclosing in on us and threatening us. Rocks were strewn around the room, which only highlighted the fact that we were probably in a dark place. A group of rocks blocked an exit ahead, but there was a little gap Frisk and I could probably squeeze through. The ceiling looked like it could fall on us at any moment, and considering we were hundreds of feet underground, that was a very scary thought. And in the corner of the room, there was a little dirt pile, so dark and hidden that I hadn't noticed it before. And in the center of the dirt pile, there was a yellow flower.

The flower looked like it was supposed to be yellow, but so much dust and dirt had accumulated onto it that it looked brown instead. The flower had six petals, and the top left one had a jagged cut running through half of it, nearly splitting the petal in half. The petal near the right side of the flower looked like someone had taken a bite out of it. The situation looked so terrible that I found myself feeling pity for the flower. It didn't deserve to be in a hellish place like this one. It didn't deserve to be nearly dead because of the lack of sunlight down in the place. And I wondered how the tear and the bite had arisen. Perhaps a rock or two had fallen on the flower? There was certainly enough rubble to support that hypothesis.

Then the flower moved, and I was so surprised that I recoiled in shock. Of course, Frisk didn't even move. They just looked curious. As I looked at the flower more closely, I noticed there were some features I had missed. In the middle of the flower, there was a face, complete with two eyes and a mouth. It looked as torn and worn down as the rest of the flower did. I wondered what kind of place we were in, with flowers that could move and probably talk. It seemed like we were in a broken fantasy, where everything was supposed to be happy with talking flowers but everything just felt a lot worse.

Then a song started playing. It sounded like a happy tune, but it was so slowed down and distorted that I got a feeling of hopelessness. Frisky and I looked around wildly, but there was no audio player. I wondered where in the world the music was coming from. There was really only one possible solution, which simultaneously filled me with confusion and joy. At last, we had found someone else who had a theme song. Even if that was a flower. And even if the theme song sounded terrible. But at the same time, I wondered what had happened to the flower, to make its theme song so sad. Frisk's theme song always stayed happy, no matter what horrible things happened to us. And here was someone whose theme song sounded like a depressed version of happy birthday.

Frisk had seemingly come to the same conclusion that I had. They slowly took a step forward, probably trying to comfort the flower. The flower only regressed more into the shadows, as though it was trying to hide from us. The flower began to speak, confirming my guess that he could.

"Pl...Please don't kill me," he said, shrinking and cowering away from us.

Frisk and I shared a worried glance. What possibly could have happened to this flower to make it so afraid of everything, even a random stranger? What kind of world was this?

Meanwhile, I was worried that this was a trap. But the entire setup...just logically thinking about it, it couldn't be a trap. No trap would have someone looking so worn out and terrible. And I could tell the flower wasn't faking his injuries. They kept shaking, and their petals seemed to close in on themselves as though trying to protect the flower.

"We won't kill you," said Frisk gently, who took a step towards the flower. I was still a little bit unsure, but I followed Frisk. They always knew the best for me, and I doubted that would change now. Plus, I wasn't going to let Frisk walk towards a possible trap alone.

"You...you're sparing me?" replied the flower, unsure, and I wondered why they were so quick to trust if they had seemed so scared. It was almost as if they were making a choice, as if they could go back and fix their error if this was a trap. But I was probably thinking into the scenario too much. I focused on the flower, who had started speaking again. "I-I've never seen someone SPARE something before," he continued.

Again, Frisk and I looked at each other. I could guess their thoughts: 'What was this world?'

"Don't worry. We won't hurt you," said Frisk. "I'm Frisk, and this is my twin Chara. What's your name?"

"Flowey," he responded, and if it wasn't for the hopelessness of the scenario I might have laughed. What kind of name was Flowey for a flower? It was almost as if he had named himself. But that made no sense. 'Actually, if flowers grow from the ground, do they get to name themselves?' I pondered. I guessed that made sense.

"Here," said Frisk, holding out their hands. "You can come with us."

The flower still looked unsure, but slowly hopped into Frisk's hands. "Quickly," he said, looking a little less scared. "She could come soon."

"Who's she?" I asked.

"There's no time to explain. Just try to get me to the next SAVE point—er, try to get me past that brick wall," he responded.

I suddenly heard a loud crash, and Frisk and I simultaneously began to hobble as fast as we could through the hole in the rubble. I reached it first, and quickly squeezed through the gap. Beyond the rubble was a pink room, as ruined as the last one, and two sets of stairs on either side. There was a bright yellow star right in front of us, rotating off the ground. But I didn't have time to admire the scenery. I continued limping forward, which seemed somewhat counterintuitive, because we were going towards the noise.

Frisk and Flowey squeezed through behind me, and I heard a gasp. "Wh—where's the..."

"Where's the what?" asked Frisk. "You mean that yellow floating star?"

"You see a star? Touch it!" yelled Flowey, sounding almost desperate.

I waited a moment for Frisk to catch up, and Frisk held Flowey with one hand and me in the other. Together, we reached out with our linked hands and touched the star.

I can't describe what I felt during those moments after touching the star. It was almost like we were solidifying a point in time, where we could go back to if we wanted. I'm being honest, I got that much from one star. It didn't make any sense.

But I didn't have time to ponder on it. Suddenly, we heard a large crash above us, and someone—or something—walked into the space above us.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hi again! I'm releasing this a day early, because I'm away and won't have internet connection tomorrow. Also, I got a review! I'm so happy! My life is literally amazing. If I get another 2 reviews, I'm releasing a bonus chapter on Wednesday instead of waiting until Saturday like normal. It's finals week, so I've got a lot of stuff going on, but I have enough prewritten that I can afford to do two uploads in one week. And I might be doing biweekly updates in the summer, but don't count on it yet. This next chapter will really give you an idea of what this book is going to be like.**

 **Remember, I do not own Undertale or the idea of Underfell.**

Chapter 2: Frisk

I don't think Chara trusted the flower. And considering how close we were to each other, anything I thought about them was probably true. But I trusted the flower, and that was what mattered. I'd keep Flowey safe no matter what. A poor creature like him didn't have to live in this cruel, cruel world. And I would keep him safe, even if it meant death. Flowey was the third nice person I had ever met in this world, and I wasn't letting go of him. Not for as long as I lived.

I was a little more hurt than I let on, and I'm pretty sure Chara knew that. I didn't think anything was broken or sprained, but every couple seconds an intense pain shot down my back, and my left leg hurt to move. But I kept pushing on. Chara said I was good at doing that. Chara thought I was such a good person, which I found confusing. Their theme song was so much cooler than mine. Sure, mine was happy, but theirs helped me whenever we were running, or doing some other intense activity. And it was so catchy. Like a lot more catchy than mine was. I often caught myself humming it in my spare time. I was pretty sure Chara thought mine was better. I had no idea how; their's was so good. But anyways, back to the story.

So when Flowey yelled out at us to touch the golden star, Chara stopped for a second to let me catch up. I really appreciated that, because I couldn't quite walk normally. When we touched the star together, the feeling was indescribable. It felt like pure happiness. Like something was fixing us in place. And Flowey seemed to enjoy it too. I wondered how he knew about the golden stars. And he had called them SAVE points. Maybe they could SAVE us somehow? We definitely needed some saving.

Then I heard the huge crash. Chara and I panicked. "Run," shouted Flowey, and we did. We squeezed through the gap and ran back to the place where we had fallen, not daring to look back. More crashes came from behind us. I hoped that whoever she was, she wouldn't kill us on the spot. Chara and I huddled together for a moment with Flowey in the room, praying that she wouldn't be able to get past that gap.

"Our injuries are healed," said Chara, and Flowey's were, too. I hadn't even noticed; I was that worried. "And she shouldn't be able to get through that gap if she's bigger than us. We barely fit. And from the size of that crash, she's probably bigger than us. So we should be safe."

She was bigger than us, and we weren't safe. We heard another crash as what was probably the rubble blocking the entrance collapsed, and a demonic woman walked out of the door and towards us. She looked like some kind of goat-creature, but standing on two feet and decked out in red and black. Her eyes were pure yellow, with red irises. She was wearing something that looked like an apron, also red and black. I only had enough time to realize we were going to die before it happened.

Death was painful. Death by burning was even more so. People talked about how torture was worse than death. I wondered how anything could be worse than this. Everything went black. I couldn't see. I couldn't feel. I wondered how I was still conscious. Then, as I watched, a little red heart—my soul?—shattered into pieces.

Suddenly, I felt something building up within me. Something that...refused to die. That's the only way I could explain it. Chara would probably do a better job. But I'm not Chara, so you'll have to deal with a pretty terrible , something inside me refused to die. I felt myself coming back together again. I felt my wounds healing. And I felt some weird feeling, like we were going backwards somehow. Again, Chara would do a better job.

Suddenly, we were back at the floating yellow star—the SAVE point. Chara and I stared at each other for a moment. What had happened? Flowey, on the other hand, didn't look surprised. I was about to ask him when another loud crash came from above us. Chara and I again started running towards he gap, hoping we could get a few moments to talk about WHAT JUST HAPPENED at the place where we fell. I didn't really have time to admire the rubble as we dashed through the large door and towards the sunlight.

"I can explain," said Flowey quickly. "That's a SAVE point. You go back there if your soul shatters. That's the red heart. So you're basically invincible. Just, you have to do the same thing over again, and in this world, it takes a lot of tries to get it right. Try hiding this time. You might—" Those were his last words, before we heard the loud crash and froze. "Just hide this time!" he said before we died again.

We did hide the third time around, in the little alcove beneath the stairs. The woman walked past us slowly and sent a huge fireball towards the wall. 'So that was how she broke through,' I thought to myself as she continued into the next room. As soon as she disappeared around the bend, we bolted out of our hiding positions and ran up the stairs, only to find what looked like a puzzle. 'There isn't any time for this,' I thought to myself. 'I just have to guess the right ones. It can't be that hard.' Of course, the first platform I stepped on was a trap. I felt a spike impaling me before I died. Again.

The fourth time, we hid and ran up the stairs again. "You want to step on the ones that aren't in the middle!" said Flowey rapidly. I could almost hear Chara sarcastically saying, "You could have told us, y'know, the last time around." Chara quickly stepped on the two on the left side of the path, while I took the right. We dashed into the next room, which was just painfully long, with a set of spikes at the end. "Pull the switch in the middle—wait, I mean—" It was too late. Chara had dashed to the middle switch and fell down into...somewhere. I felt myself being pulled back to our SAVE point.

"At least we're making a little progress," I said before the woman crashed in, for the fifth time now. We hid, solved the first puzzle, and pulled the right switch. Beyond the door lay a left turn and the charred remains of what looked like a dummy.

"Well, that's our fate in about five seconds," said Chara, referring to the dummy.

"Stay positive," I replied. "We've got unlimited chances! We just have to stay determined!"

Chara rolled their eyes as we found what looked like a death trap. There was literally a row of spikes before us. This did not seem possible to solve. Plus, we could hear the sounds of that woman getting closer. "Hide!" Flowey instructed. We hid behind a group of vines on the wall, clutching each other and holding our breath. The woman ran past us—she had probably detected us somehow—and ran across the spikes in a certain path, which allowed her to get through without being stabbed.

"That's Toriel," said Flowey, once the danger had passed. "She's the owner of the Ruins. She's ruthless and destroys everything in her path."

"Was she always like this?" I asked. "There has to be some good inside her."

"No, a long time ago, she cared about people. I don't know what happened. Now she's just a murderer." Flowey seemed to visibly shrink. I wondered what was going on and why Toriel gave him these reactions. Chara seemed to have no idea either, from the confused glance they sent me.

"Now," I said, "let's get past these spikes."

"I didn't quite memorize the pattern," said Chara, and I was once again impressed that they could memorize the pattern at all. "I could probably get it with a couple tries, but...I don't want to have to go through that again."

"There's a path on the ground. It shows you how to get through the spikes," said Flowey, and I was very glad that we had decided to save him. He kept proving to be useful.

"Okay," said Chara. "Let's do this." Chara's theme song began playing, which I thought was a nice touch. The situation probably should have been ten times more epic than walking through a pit of spikes, but I wasn't complaining. I definitely did not want harder puzzles. We slowly made our way across the pit of spikes. I was scared at every point that we would make a wrong move, but Chara seemed confident, and of course I trusted them. When we reached the other side, I laughed in relief. That was really scary.

Past the pit of spikes, we reached a very long corridor. Chara and I exchanged a glance.

"Race?" I asked.

"Race," they replied.

The two of us broke into a full on sprint towards the end of the hall, Chara's theme song still playing loudly. Chara won, of course. They were always faster than me. But we both laughed, and I jokingly said, "You only beat me because I was carrying Flowey."

"You want a rematch?" they countered, smiling.

"There's no time for this, interjected Flowey. "What if she comes back?"

Suddenly, we heard loud footsteps echoing down the corridor. We both froze in shock and fear, despite Flowey telling us to "get out of the way, you numbskulls!" Chara looked at me and smiled sadly, accepting our fate. I nodded, and before I even knew it, I was dead.

On the sixth attempt, we failed at hiding well

enough in the wall. Toriel walked up to us slowly, and, for once, didn't kill us instantly. She seemed a bit more interested, this time. She set up a wall of fire around us, so we couldn't escape. I could feel the heat all around me, choking me. Then Toriel began asking us questions.

"Did you fall down here?" she asked. "Together?"

Slowly, Chara nodded, too afraid to say a word. I spoke for them. "Yes, we fell down. We were...running away from people and we fell." Not technically a lie.

Toriel's eyes softened for a moment, barely enough for me to notice, but I bet Chara was already thinking of what that could possibly mean. I didn't have the time to dwell on it. Before I knew it, Toriel was talking again.

"I must take your souls. But even if you must die, you may as well fight me like a real human. Stop hiding."

Slowly, Chara and I stepped out of the vines. I felt like something important was about to happen. I was scared, but also kind of excited. A true fight, and one we couldn't technically lose. I bet Chara was literally on their toes. They were usually better at physical activities than I was. I guessed I'd die long before then.

"Now, let us begin."

Suddenly, I could see my red heart, the one that had shattered when we died.

Toriel sent a massive wave of fireballs at us, and suddenly all my excitement faded away. There was no way I was expected to dodge that. Chara, running forward, danced through a couple of the fireballs, but seemed unable to dodge all of them, too. We got hit at the same time, and our red hearts shattered in unison, killing us again.

We woke up at the SAVE point for the seventh time, and Chara and I walked through the same pattern that we had done for the last two saves. We waited behind the vines until Toriel left, and then Flowey hurriedly said, "I can explain." I wondered how he knew all of this stuff, but he was on our side, so I was kind of relieved. "That red heart, that's your soul. It shatters when you die. What Toriel did there, that's called SOUL mode. You have to fight her or run, and it's basically impossible to run, so you have to fight. And usually, you have to kill, too." Chara and I glanced at each other, and we could almost read each other's thoughts. "There is no way that we HAVE to kill."

Flowey continued without even pausing. "Your soul grows stronger when you gain LOVE. You get LOVE by killing things. The monsters in here are so cruel that they kill everything in their sight. And Toriel has killed so many, she's super strong. It's a miracle she hasn't wiped out the RUINS yet. That's where we are. The first part of the Underground. So the monsters are terribly strong, and your only options are to kill, die, or run away. And you're not running away." We weren't killing either, so we had to find another option.

"So you either kill or be killed. I haven't killed anything, but that's only because I could use SAVE points, like you. I can't use them anymore. Nobody remembers anything after a SAVE. Somehow, I do. Probably because you're holding me when you die. So I just hide from everything. I was about to give up and start killing when you found me. But I don't want to turn into one of them. I don't want to be a murderer. So, thanks for coming, and making me realize that there might be another way. Wait. Hide! She's coming back!"

After Toriel passed us again, we got a chance to ask some questions of our own. Or, more specifically, Chara got a chance to ask some questions of their own. "How do you know all of this?"

"I've been able to save, so I've traveled all over the Underground, while not killing anything. There aren't many monsters left. Oh yeah, everything down here is called a monster. Even me. The monsters down here keep killing each other off. I've learned a lot. I keep trying to end this madness, but no matter what I do, King Asgore just kills me. I don't know what I should do. Maybe if you get to him, you can do something? You're humans. That might make a difference. And you've got lots of tries. As many as you want."

"Do you know why this world is so cruel?" asked Chara.

"No," responded Flowey harshly. "I don't know."

Chara and I glanced at each other. We do that a lot. We both knew Flowey was lying, but neither of us were going to press him. We turned back, and for once, I spoke. "So...what now?"

"Wait until Toriel comes back," he answered. "Then run behind her and hope she doesn't notice you. The next save point is right around the corner. You almost reached it a couple times ago."

Once again, we failed at hiding almost instantly. Before we died, I bravely (or perhaps stupidly) yelled "Fight us like a real monster!" Chara looked at me like I was insane, which was probably insane.

Toriel stopped. "You think that you pathetic weaklings could ever defeat me? No. Watch."

Toriel started off easy this time, but so was barely able to dodge them. Chara seemed to be having fun, effortlessly dodging fireball after fireball. As Toriel sped up, the fireballs became faster and harder to dodge. It wasn't long before I decided to try running away, knowing I would never be able to face Toriel in a real fight. To my ultimate surprise, Toriel didn't pursue. It seemed like she was trying to defeat Chara, then kill me afterwards. I'll admit, I was a little envious of Chara's dodging skills. They seemed to have no trouble in dodging every fireball. Suddenly, Toriel seemed to concentrate, and the fireballs came twice as fast. Chara didn't even last a second until I felt myself being pulled back to the save point.

On the eighth try, we hid in the alcove, climbed up the stairs, solved the puzzles (aka death traps), hid behind the vines, dashed as quickly as we could behind Toriel without her noticing us, solved the spike puzzle, raced past the long hallway, and (finally) reached the save point. We reached out and touched it together, but almost instantly Toriel had noticed us, and I didn't even have time to say something cocky before we died again.

We spawned again, at the save point, only to die instantly from Toriel's fireball. There was no time to dodge that. There was no time to hide. We were stuck.

"Try RESETting!" yelled Flowey, after the third or fourth death. It took me another two deaths for my mind to process what he had said, and then he screamed again, "Just try go farther back this time!" Chara and I waited another death before, still holding each other's hands, tried to pull back farther in time.

And then we were where we had fallen down, and everything hurt again.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hi again! I know I didn't get 3 reviews, but I'm releasing this chapter on Wednesday anyways, because I honestly couldn't wait to see your reaction. Plus, I now have 2 followers! Still really excited about that.**

 **I'll admit, this chapter isn't as good as the last two. By I'm always open to criticism, so don't be afraid to leave a review or PM me saying how I should improve my writing. I'll probably get better as the story continues, with more experience. Anyways, onto the chapter.**

 **Oh, and Toby Fox owns Undertale.**

Chapter 3: Chara

I didn't trust the flower. He seemed to know way too much about this world. Like he had been a part of this whole "kill or be killed" society. And he seemed to be keeping secrets from us. Why could we use the SAVE points, not him? Why were people like this? What had happened to them? If the SAVE points erased everyone's memories, which they seemed to do, how could he remember them? He didn't give us any answers, which simultaneously worried me and intrigued me. I was a curious person, much more curious than Frisk was. But I wasn't brave enough to ask, so half the time Frisk just asked for me. Back to the point: I did not trust the flower.

So when he started screaming stuff about RESETs and "going farther back," I wasn't so sure. I had noticed it a couple times we had died before: there was another option. A way to go to a different place. But I don't think Frisk noticed. So I didn't ask anyone, and I definitely didn't try it. That seemed scary. Venturing into the unknown. Going to somewhere we had never been before. I wasn't very good at that. Frisk was much better. They were better than me at a lot of stuff.

But Flowey hadn't led us wrong yet. And I knew it myself: we had a practically infinite amount of chances. So why not just take the risk? Plus, I think Frisk trusted the flower, and they seemed determined to go back, so I agreed. We would go back together, after another death. Frisk seemed very unsettled by all the deaths, even though they were used to pain. Perhaps it was just the idea of dying, over and over again? That made sense. I, on the other hand, was perfectly fine with the deaths. Well not perfectly fine, but I didn't mind them too much. And I could get my bearings back after a death very quickly, unlike Frisk. So I gave Frisk a death to collect their bearings, and then we pulled back together.

It's really hard to explain what happened when we pulled back. It was almost like some invisible hand was dragging us back to the start, and even though we had initiated it, it still felt against my will. I struggled to get out of the hand's grip, but then realized what I was fighting against, and stopped. Plus, I couldn't just abandon Frisk. That wasn't how it worked. So the hand pulled us back, and I suddenly noticed a metaphorical light, which grew and grew until it became the sun, and suddenly the light was above me, streaming out of the hole at he top of the mountain.

Everything hurt again. It was almost as if we had been pulled back to the moment we fell, which made sense, because Flowey had called it a reset. I wondered why we didn't reset further back. Perhaps to the time before we jumped down this mountain? Or better yet, before everything happened in our home. Then we could have run away earlier, and perhaps we could have climbed down the mountain like sensible people instead of just jumping and hoping to never come back. That was, in retrospect, not the greatest of our ideas. But we had to get away, and this was the fastest way. Plus, stuff here was better, right? We had met a nice person within the first five minutes.

I knew Frisk was probably still disoriented from the fall, or the reset, or whatever it was. So, without further ado, I started playing my theme song, just for a couple notes. It was only a second or two after I stopped that Frisk's began playing, and their's didn't stop. They were always so kind, playing their theme song instead of making me play my ugly one. I slowly climbed to my feet, and helped Frisk get up, too. They still seemed to have no idea what was going on.

"What...happened?" they asked, their voice seemingly half-awake.

"We RESET," I responded. "So now we're back to the start, when we fell down. Come on. Let's go find Flowey."

They nodded, and without further ado we stumbled forward to the door and slowly creeped in. We were greeted to the same desolate scene as before, so I won't waste your time describing it. Rubble. Blocked entrance. Dirt pile. Dilapidated flower. You get it. Flowey crouched in the same position in before, and he didn't even seem to respond to us.

"Pl...Please don't kill me," he said. He looked as scared and frightened as he did the first time.

"Did—Did you forget everything?" asked Frisk. I just nodded, trying to enhance their words, but it just made the whole situation more awkward.

"Forget what?" replied Flowey, seemingly confused.

"There's no time," I interjected. "Basically, we stole the save power from you, had to RESET, you forgot everything, and Toriel's coming in about a minute. Let's get to the SAVE point and hide, okay?"

Flowey nodded, still looking a bit confused, by I could tell he probably trusted us. Frisk picked him up with their right hand as I crawled through the crack. I waited a moment, and hen Frisk came through, and we linked hands, just like last time. We touched the SAVE point, and I got that same weird feeling, which Frisk probably described to you. And if they said I could explain it better, I probably can't. It was really, really confusing, but I accepted it. I had to.

We were a bit quicker this time, and got about half a minute to relax before a resounding crash jolted us to action. It only took us one try this second time around, hiding and solving puzzles easily. Before we knew it, we were back at the SAVE point, with no Toriel in sight. Frisk and I smiled at each other, and paused for a moment. Frisk played with the leaves for a moment. I watched them, occasionally kicking a leaf or two around myself. We had a bit of time. Why not use it to relax? We were both tired.

"There's no time for this!" yelled Flowey, and I subconsciously smiled. That sarcastic flower was back, I thought to myself, almost... affectionately? I don't know. I can't describe it. Flowey was such an interesting person—er, flower. He wasn't all smiles and happiness, but at the same time, he wasn't mean. He was a lot like me. I could respect that. And plus, he was growing on me.

"We've got some time before Toriel comes back. She probably gave up on us," I responded. "I don't hear loud footsteps anymore, and the monsters here are starting to come back. I just hope we don't run into any of them."

It was speak of the devil. The moment I said that, some small frog-looking creature jumped out of the shadows and bared its teeth menacingly at us. Like Toriel, it was all red, unlike the normal green of frogs, and bounced from side to side so quickly that I was almost sure it was on fire. The creature growled, and I was very scared, which doesn't happen much. I wondered how Frisk was feeling. Probably much worse than I was.

And it's theme song...that was demented too. Like everything about the frog, it seemed super sped up, to the point where I could barely tell apart individual notes. The high notes made for a super fast and somewhat scary melody. I didn't even know that melodies COULD be scary until I fell into the Underground. But it was scary, and I didn't know what to do.

"Uh, hi...?" Frisk offered, seemingly unsure. The frog responded by pulling our souls straight out of our body. Literally. Frisk screamed. I almost screamed too. A frog pulling out twin red souls from out bodies. It was the stuff of nightmare fuel. But I had to admire that both of our souls, which were identical, looked pretty. They were a deep shade of red, like my eyes. Frisk occasionally commented on how red my eyes were; theirs were a normal brown. Our parents thought it was because I was a demon. I didn't quite disagree. But back to the souls. Mine pulsated a little, moving, so I knew it was alive.

I tried moving my soul a little to the left, then to the right. It effortlessly followed my commands. I tried moving around in a circle, then doing a backflip (with my soul, not my body). The first command worked easily, the second just resulted in my soul falling over. I pushed it back up. As I looked over, I noticed Frisk had seemed to have gained control over their own soul, too. They were moving it in pretty figure eights. I joined them, moving in the opposite direction but somehow never touching. I was afraid to touch our souls together. Frisk's inched closer to mine, and I could tell they wanted to try touching our souls. I slowly pulled away. I didn't want to try anything yet. I was never the courageous one. That was Frisk, always hopping into situations like they didn't care about the consequences. And somehow, it usually worked, too. But that was beyond the point. The point was, we were dancing around with our two souls, having lots of fun.

Then Flowey screamed, "Look up, you idiots!" and we looked up only for our souls to run straight into some white pellets. I recoiled in shock, and pain. That had hurt, a lot. Too many hits like that and I would be dead. Frisk seemed to have the same realization. I dodged the second set of attacks, but they didn't, and their soul wavered, clearly weak. Another pellet was running towards their soul, but I blocked it, taking the damage for myself. Both our souls were flickering now, and neither of us could dodge the third attack that came. Our souls shattered into pieces simultaneously, horrifying music still playing the background.

The second time, we didn't fool around, but we ran into the same frog after just a couple steps, who started pelting us with more of those white pellets. Bullets? I'd call them bullets for now, but they weren't the standard type of bullets fired from a gun. So the frog sent white bullets at us, and Frisk actually succeeded at dodging this time. I did too, of course. We got a few moments to try something else. I tried running, but the frog simply hopped around me, and there went our little opportunity to do something. Frisk got hit this time, and so did I. My soul hurt; in fact, my whole body hurt.

Before I died again, I tried doing something different. I growled at the frog, matching it glare for glare, and said, loudly, "We are humans. We have the power to destroy all of you. Run away or die!" To my ultimate surprise, the frog—and all the surrounding monsters ran in fear. Frisk and I looked at each other in shock.

"You...you weren't actually going to try kill them, right?" asked Frisk, softly.

"Of course not. It's just...being nice doesn't work in this world. So I tried something else. And it worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah, it did. What was that, anyway? Another monster...a frog?"

"A Froggit," Flowey piped up. I had almost forgotten he was here; he had been so quiet, and we were used to being alone. "They're probably the second weakest of the monsters in the RUINS. Toriel is at least five times stronger. And considering how badly you did against the Froggit, your only chance against Toriel is it not let her see you. That, or backstab her."

"We are not backstabbing her," I said, determinedly, and Frisk nodded, to emphasize my point. "And...we'll only run away if we have to. I think I have an idea. But I want to find out more about her." Toriel's eyes had softened when she heard that we fell from the surface. Perhaps she had seen another human fall down here? And perhaps cared for them, or at least not murdered them? Maybe that was the solution to making her let us go. There had to be some kind of connection there.

"Flowey?" I asked. "Do you know about Toriel and any other fallen children?"

"No," he replied quickly, and I realized he was a pretty terrible liar. That was very, very obvious. Probably obvious enough for Frisk to notice, which was obvious. But I didn't feel like pressing. Flowey had been so kind to us, and given us so much information. So if he wanted to hide some personal stuff, well, it probably wasn't important, and if it was, we'd find it out on our own. Trying to get answers out of him would ruin the second friend (not including Frisk) that I had ever made.

Sighing, I said, "Come on, let's get moving before they realize we aren't really a threat and come back." Frisk nodded, and we continued.

There was a left turn in the path ahead of us, and as soon as we began walking after making the turn, Flowey yelled, "Stop!" Frisk and I froze instantaneously, and I wondered why in the world we were trusting someone we had just met. Hadn't the world beaten us down enough for us to know that trusting people only makes you get hurt? But for some reason, Frisk and I listened to Flowey, because despite everything, he still seemed like a good person. Or a good flower. Whatever.

I was interrupted from my musings when Flowey explained why he had told us to stop. "There's a crack in the ground here. If you walk on it, you fall down and land in a pit of spikes. Usually I just tunnel below the ground, but, uh, I don't think that'll work for you."

I thought for a moment. "How does Toriel get past it? From the speed she was running at, there has to be a fast way for someone like her to get over it. How big is it? Can we jump?"

"There's no way you can jump. You could try, I really don't know how far humans can jump. But just from how small you are, I doubt it. I have no idea how Toriel gets past it. I've never seen her, because this wasn't a problem for me." And I could tell he wasn't lying; he was so easy to read. So that was a minor problem. I inspected the walls, looking for handholds. Despite how the entire room was in shambles, I couldn't find a reasonable path for us to climb over there. What I did notice was a large opening at the other end of the trap, which didn't really help us, since we couldn't climb through it. Frisk seemed clueless, too. I thought for a minute.

"Wait," I said, thinking. "Let me try something." I tentatively placed a foot on the trap, and the weak floor collapsed, sending the entire floor to the ground. It landed on the spikes.

"And what was THAT supposed to do?" asked Flowey.

"I don't know. At least we know we can't jump it now," I responded. "Maybe there's, like, a secret switch on the wall or something.

"This isn't a game," Flowey sighed, but he resignedly looked around anyway. It didn't matter. We didn't find anything.

"Hm," I said, still thinking. "What does Toriel have that we don't? I mean, I don't think she can jump this, either."

"Fire magic," said Flowey. "She can manipulate fire, create, make it do what she wants it to. Like some kind of elemental."

"Elemental? There are movies down here?" Frisk asked.

"No!" said Flowey, and it seemed like he was telling the truth, but hiding something. That was okay. Flowey could keep his secrets to himself. I wasn't going to start a fight over whether or not there were movies in the Underground. That was simply unreasonable.

"So what if she has fire magic? Does she just create a magical bridge out of fire to carry her across?" I asked, sarcastically. So I was surprised when Flowey said it could possibly happen. "But then, we have no idea how to get across this."

"Maybe try flying," suggested Frisk, and I was simultaneously filled with annoyance at their stupidity and fondness at their innocence.

"People can't fly, unless we have magical powers. And I doubt—"

"Actually, down here, some humans do have magical powers," said Flowey. "It's part of the magic of his place. Monsters are made up entirely of magic, and the magical barrier which keeps us all Underground—"

"The what?" I asked.

"There's a barrier that keeps monsters here. Only someone with a powerful soul—I think a human's soul would probably do it—can escape."

So we weren't trapped down here forever. That was a good thing, but I didn't know if I wanted to go to the surface again, anyways. Frisk seemed to have the same idea.

"As I was saying," Flowey continued, "The barrier also blocks all magic. So the magic down here is really concentrated. There are—uh—legends of humans gaining magical power after falling down here."

"How many humans have fallen down here," asked Frisk. "Did any of them escape?"

"Six, and no," he replied. "But they couldn't—uh, I don't think they could SAVE, or they'd be alive now. So you two have a chance of getting out. Also... can you bring me with you? Please?"

"Of course!" we replied in unison. That was a freaky coincidence, but I didn't let my mind continue. We had other things to do. "So, what kind of magical powers could we possibly have?"

"I don't know. It's different for every human. But maybe you could try flying?"

"Yay!" said Frisk, excited. They closed their eyes for a minute, but didn't spontaneously start floating off the ground. They opened their eyes again and frowned.

"In all seriousness," I began, "I think I found a way. We could slowly climb down the pit, and then carefully make our way across the spikes, and then climb up that ladder over there. Or whatever that thing is." There was something looking like a really large mail chute at the bottom of the other end of the trap, which looked like it led up to the large opening on the other side. It looked like there was a similar thing on our side, which would have made the puzzle easy, but it looked to be destroyed.

"How am I supposed to climb down this while still holding Flowey?" asked Frisk.

"I can tunnel underground," he stated. So he did, and we carefully followed my plan. We didn't even die once, which was an improvement.

The next room was filled with more rubble, more purple, and more traps. But this one seemed to be solved, though not in a good way. There was a plate which apparently brought down a set of spikes on the other side of the room. The spikes were already retracted, because there was something on the plate. I covered Frisk's eyes, and nearly retched myself.

There was a dead Froggit—an actual DEAD monster—holding down the pressure plate. Still feeling like throwing up, I slowly walked across the retracted spikes, Frisk blindly following me. Flowey didn't even seem to react, like he had seen much worse, and I supposed he had, considering he had been here for so long. We reached the end of the room, and I opened Frisk's eyes, not wanting to ever see that again.

"What was that?" asked Frisk, and I couldn't respond.

"You don't want to see it," said Flowey. "Come on. We have to keep moving."

There was a right turn ahead of us, and as we made it, I noticed tiny cracks in the floor. I precariously stepped on one, but only half of the floor fell down. The rest stayed in place. I tested my weight on one of the ones which stayed, knowing that I could probably just load our SAVE if I died, and it held. So in this manner, testing each step before we got to it, we slowly traversed across the death trap. I suppose it was made for smaller monsters, as they couldn't really test their weight before they fell down.

I spied what was coming ahead, and covered Frisk's eyes again. This seemed like exactly the same puzzle as two rooms before, but instead of there being one dead Froggit, there were three dead monsters: a Froggit, what looked like a fly or little bird, and a slimy thing that looked like Jello. I felt like throwing up all over again; the second time was not better than the first. A small bridge over water blocked us from what looked like another save point, but according to Flowey, there was no trap here, so we slowly made our way across the bridge and SAVED.

This room seemed even more ruined that the rest, and I saw what looked like moldy cheese on what looked like a table. Considering the dead mice around it, I could guess it was poisoned. On the side of the room opposite the table, there was a tiny mouse hole. It looked abandoned. I assumed all the mice had died. But there was nothing else in the room. No death traps—well, one death trap, but no death traps for us—and no dead monsters, unless you count the magical mice. And since we had seen dead mice before, I didn't close Frisk's eyes. They still didn't look to be in the best shape, though. As we moved on, we noticed a ghost lying in our way. It was decked out, again, in pure red and black. I wondered if those two and purple were the only colors we'd ever see in this place.

The ghost rose up, and smiled creepily. His eyes looked to be filled with red tears, as though he was bleeding from his eyes. Then he spoke, somehow having a mouth despite being an amorphous ghost.

"Let's... play a song, shall we?" he said, still wearing the creepy smile. Then our souls appeared in front of us, and the music kicked in.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I hit 100 views. I can't believe so many people are reading my story. It really fills me with determination. Also, I know I'm gonna gush about my reviews/views every chapter. You can just skip the author's notes if they get annoying. Also, it's official: Updates will be biweekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Enough babbling, onto he chapter.**

 **Toby Fox owns Undertale.**

Chapter 4: Frisk

I was scared of the place we had fallen into. It had so many creepy monsters—well, Flowey seemed nice—and just looked scary. Purple everywhere. Rocks all over the place. Even Flowey looked worn down and torn when we first saw him, though he looked much better after the SAVE point. And then there was the part where Chara kept covering my face. I didn't know what was going on. Chara had never covered my face before, even when we were bleeding. And now they had to cover my face twice, and I blindly followed them forward. It was scary, but I trusted my twin. And I was sure they trusted me, too.

So when the creepy looking ghost rose up from the ground and started playing an equally creepy theme song, or at least that's what I guessed it was, I wasn't all that surprised. Toriel was much scarier, and so was the Froggit. The monsters under our bed paled in comparison. But this ghost seemed sad, like he needed a hug. Even though he was dressed in red and black, he was crying. Crying blood, but crying nonetheless, and I wanted to help him. I wanted to give him a hug and tell him everything would be okay. That's what I did to Chara sometimes. I felt like playing my theme song to make the ghost feel better, but his theme song was playing , and I didn't want to interrupt. Interrupting was rude; out parents had drilled that into our head enough times.

So when the battle started and our souls appeared in front of us, I tried telling him a joke. "Knock knock," I said, expecting him to respond. Instead he just started crying more tears of blood. He looked all big and scary, but I knew there was a soft heart somewhere in him. There had to be. He was just pushing it away by hiding it from us.

I tried telling him so, and Chara looked at me, clearly annoyed. In response, the ghost cried twice as much blood. Chara struggled to dodge them, and got hit by a few. My slow self ran straight from one to another, my soul gaining cracks each time. By the time the ghost let us do something else, my soul looked almost ready to shatter. I tried making one more joke, this time without his input required, but he seemed to ignore it, crying even more blood. As soon as one of the pellets hit me, my soul shattered, sending us back. Thankfully, the last SAVE point was right next to the ghost.

When we were revived again, I decided to ask Flowey a question, hoping he could help. He seemed to know everything, after all. He was such a help so far, and he was a great friend. Yes, a friend. That's what I would be calling him from now on. So, I decided to ask my friend a question.

"Who is that monster—ghost—thing and what do you know about him?" That seemed like a huge question, so I was surprised when he answered it.

"That's a ghost monster, and his name is Napstablook. He usually doesn't live in the RUINS—that's what this part of the Underground is called—but he's here now. Napstablook cries blood a lot—I don't know why—but he's here now. He's one of the more powerful monsters in the Underground. Not that powerful, but he's much stronger than that Froggit you saw earlier. Oh, and he likes music."

"Music?" I asked, smiling, and looked at Chara. They looked like they were sighing in acceptance.

"Fine, I'll play my theme song."

"What does it sound like?" Flowey piped up.

"It's so cool," I said, almost gushing. "It sounds like one of those epic battles and it's so catchy and—"

"That's enough," interjected Chara. "I said I would play it, okay? Now let's go."

Once again, I was greeted with the sight of Napstablook, who was slightly less horrifying than Toriel and the Froggit but scary nonetheless. He rose up, just like the last time, but before he could do anything, Chara started playing their theme song.

"That's cool!" said Flowey, bobbing up and down to the rhythm. Napstablook seemed to agree.

"That's pretty good," said Napstablook, also bobbing up and down. "Let's see if your skills are as good as your song," he said, giving off that creepy smile.

Chara's soul was instantly pulled into battle, but for some reason, mine wasn't. I backed away so none of the tears—blood—whatever would hit me. Chara seemed to be dodging like a professional, and between Napstablook's attacks, she seemed to be taunting him, telling him stuff like "Is that all you got?" and "Maybe try and hit me next time." Napstablook began to show signs of wear. He began moving slower, and his attacks became more sluggish. After a couple more minutes of intense fighting, he gave up.

"Wow," he said. "You really are good at this. Let's make a deal. I get to use your song in my mixtapes, and you can get killed by someone else."

"Deal," Chara said, still wearing that smirk, and Napstablook faded away into nothing, and Chara's soul returned to their body. Suddenly, Chara collapsed, breathing heavily. I wondered how much effort it had taken them to dodge all of that, much less keep up that confidence the entire time. They looked worn out and about ready to sleep. I wondered how I could help them. Playing my theme song was an option, so I tried it. As soon as I started, within the first three notes, Flowey gasped.

"What?" I asked, seemingly confused.

Flowey seemed to struggle to find words. "I—you—play that in front of Toriel, will you? Maybe her attacks will get weaker. Maybe she'll hesitate to kill you a bit. Or maybe she'll fight stronger. I don't know. But we can try, at least. There's a SAVE point right in front of her house. We'll try to get to that next."

"But..." I pointed at Chara, who still seemed to be recovering.

"Oh, just walk them back to that SAVE point. They'll be okay."

I mentally slapped myself in the face. Seriously? That was all I needed to do. I was such an idiot. I didn't even know how to help my twin when they needed it. I was about to start blaming myself more, but Chara's gasp for air brought me back to the real world. Slowly, I helped them get up, and then walk, or in Chara's case, hobble over to the SAVE point. We touched it together, and I wondered what would happen if we had instead touched it alone. But there was no time for that. We had places to go. And hopefully we'd find a way back home, or even find a new home. Suddenly, I wondered if we were able to SAVE outside of the Underground. But neither Chara nor I had ever noticed a floating yellow star, so I just assumed we couldn't.

When Chara touched the save point, they seemed to gain their breath back, and they looked determined to continue. Suddenly, I realized I could just ask Flowey my questions.

"Flowey, do you know what would happen if one of us touched the SAVE point alone? Or if we can SAVE on the surface?"

"I have no idea. I was the only one before you two that ever controlled SAVE points, and I don't know how it happened. One day, I just woke up as a flower, and I could SAVE. I've never been to the surface. But I wouldn't recommend trying to touch SAVE points on your own. Bad stuff happens when you try to mess with magic."

I nodded, and we continued on to fight more monsters, solve more puzzles, and hopefully not kill a goat. Beyond Napstablook there looked to be a fork in the road, but the path ahead was covered by boulders. There was a tiny gap in the bottom left corner of the rubble, but I doubted Chara or I could squeeze through it.

"Flowey?" I asked. "What's beyond that pile of rocks?"

"It's the Spider Bake Sale, probably the only place down here where you won't get poisoned food. But the prices are absurd. And plus, the food's made out of spiders. But it's pretty good anyways. I'd buy you two something, but I don't have any money left, and the SAVE point replenishes your hunger anyways." These SAVE points were proving to be more and more useful as time went on.

"Why isn't the food poisoned?" I asked.

"Spiders, both down here and in the rest of the Underground, only really care about money. They don't care about killing or helping or anything. And since their food isn't poisoned, they're getting tons of business. I have no idea where the money goes. The leader of the spiders is Muffet, but she usually stays in Hotland. That's a part of the Underground far away from this one. The Underground is massive. But anyways, Muffet might try to kill you to get your money, but she's probably one of the least dangerous things down here. I can only think of one thing that's less dangerous."

"What?" I asked, filled with curiosity.

"That's a secret. You'll meet them yourselves, and I want to see you when it happens. It'll be a great experience." Flowey actually looked happy, for a change, and my heart crumbled. There was no way I could ask Flowey for information when he was so excited.

"Now, moving on. Beyond that left turn is a group of three Froggits. They stay together as some kind of wild pack, and for some reason don't kill each other. You might be able to try get them to kill each other, but you might be able to hide. That would be a better option. Chara and I both knew that we probably wouldn't do either of those options. We'd find something else out instead. "So...we'll find a way to get past them. It's so annoying, you not being able to tunnel underground. It makes everything so much more difficult. Not that that's a bad thing, because you probably have some super cool magic powers to make up for it."

The three of us slowly walked around the bend. Technically, I was holding Flowey, but those were details. Right on time the two of us noticed that pack of Froggits Flowey was talking about, and we simultaneously pulled back, hoping they hadn't seen us. Chara and I looked at each other, and we both knew what the other was thinking: they looked a lot more frightening when there were three of them. But I was filled with determination to get past these Froggits and find a new home, so I grasped Chara's hand and whispered to them, "Let's do this." Chara nodded at me, and we turned around the bend for a second try.

Chara's theme song began playing, which I thought was smart, because now their scary one couldn't play. They were always smarter than I was. The problem with this was that it took a turn to play Chara's theme song, so our souls were pelted with a rain of pellets. I dodged every single one this time. It seemed like the more I learned the attacks of an enemy, the easier it was to dodge them. So even though white pellets (or, sometimes, white flies) were flying around quickly, I managed to get through without taking a single hit. Chara made it through too, of course. I was proud of their dodging skills. At least one of us could get into fights and not be hurt. Well, to be fair, Toriel was far too strong for Chara, so they could get through most fights, not all of them.

Anyways, the Froggits gave a short break for us to try doing something. Chara tried threatening them again, but that didn't work. Perhaps they knew they were stronger as a group? This time, I wasn't so lucky. I got hit by a fly early, and blinded by pain, I stumbled straight into two more white pellets. My soul shattered. I hadn't noticed before, but it seemed like there was only pain when we died outside of SOUL mode. Otherwise, there was just a little tingling before we came back.

Thankfully, we had saved after fighting Napstablook, so Chara didn't have to go through all of that again. And mostly everything else we had done was just talking, so we didn't lose much progress. With a sigh, I prepared myself for round two of Frisk and Chara vs. Froggit Gang. That sounded like something straight out of a video game, I giggled to myself in my head. So, time to go and fight Froggit Gang, I thought to myself, smiling in my mind.

On the second try, I seemed to have even less trouble dodging the bullets and flies. It seemed like I really was getting better at this. Enough time, and I'd be just like Chara! Except they were probably improving too. Not that they had much space to improve against these Froggits.

When the Froggits stopped attacking, Chara didn't say anything, and I realized they expected me to try something. I tried complimenting them. "You...you look nice today? I really like the red, it brings out your eyes."

Chara stared at me with that expression of "Why? Just why?" written all over their face. I knew that expression. I had seen it many, many times.

But this time, the Froggits paused in shock. Clearly they weren't used to someone being nice to them. I got a plan, and was so focused on it that I nearly ran into one of the flies. I recovered, though, and successfully managed to not get hit. To my ultimate surprise, Chara was actually struck by a bullet; it barely grazed them, but their soul cracked a little. Perhaps they weren't focused? In any case, they looked determined to dodge more. But if my plan worked, they wouldn't need it.

"Hey, are you guys princes?" I said to the Froggits, mentally wincing. "Because I'll kiss you back to life."

The Froggits froze, then hopped away in fear. Chara and I broke down giggling. There was absolutely no way that could have worked, but somehow, it did. And it was hilarious: the expression in their faces when they realized what I was about to do. It almost made up for the fact that they were trying to kill us. Flowey looked to be smiling, too.

"You can stop your theme song now," I told Chara.

"Oh, I forgot it was still playing," they said, and I couldn't fault them. We played our theme songs so often that they often melted into background noise.

"You should go back and save after that. I don't think they'll be coming back," said Flowey, always the helpful one.

So we did, and we were ready to move on. "How much farther is it?" I asked Flowey.

He thought for a moment. "There are two more puzzles up ahead and then we reach Toriel's house. Hopefully you can just avoid all the monsters on the way. And hopefully you won't have to fight Toriel. But if you do, remember to play your theme song, Frisk."

Knowing that soon we'd be at the end of the RUINS and be ready to fight Toriel...

...filled us with determination.

 **A/N: Sorry guys, but this chapter is a bit shorter than usual. I really wanted the Toriel fight to be from Frisk's POV, so I'm splitting this save point in half. Also, no cliffhanger or semi-cliffhanger. You don't need one every chapter, after all. Also, try count the number of times I mention determination in this chapter. I'm too lazy to do it myself, but from editing, I know it's a lot.**

 **Actually, I have a way to make up for he shortness of this chapter. Have fun with a bonus scene!**

Once again, I was greeted with the sight of Napstablook, who was slightly less horrifying than Toriel and the Froggit but scary nonetheless. He rose up, just like the last time, but before he could do anything, Chara started playing their theme song.

"That's cool!" said Flowey, bobbing up and down to the rhythm. Napstablook seemed to agree.

"That's pretty good," said Napstablook, also bobbing up and down. "Let's see if your skills are as good as your song," he said, giving off that creepy smile. "1v1 me in fortnite m8, ur gonna get rekt."

"No u," said Chara, and I wondered WHAT WAS GOING ON? Suddenly, two computers appeared out or midair. We had used a computer perhaps twice in our lifetimes, but Chara sat down like they had used one their entire life.

While the computer was booting up, I tried asking Flowey some questions. "Do you know what 'fortnite' is? Or what 'rekt' or 'no u' mean?"

"I'm just as confused as you are," he responded. "I've never heard of anything like this, and I've never seen such an advanced computer. And I never knew Napstablook, of all people, was into video games."

"But Chara's never played a video game in their life," I whispered back. "I am so, so confused."

The game started, and I heard lots of shooting noises and taunts by both players. Something about having legendary weapons and over 9000 mats. Whatever a "mat" was. The gameplay looked really confusing, Chara's character jumping all over the place and shooting as well as breaking trees down. I didn't understand a bit of it. Since when had Chara ever played this "fortnite" game? And why were they so good?

Suddenly a bullet came out of nowhere, hitting Chara, and they took 199 damage but somehow lived. Suddenly, their character flipped around and shot some kind of rocket at Napstablook, who promptly died.

"Yay?" I said, seemingly confused, and I realized Napstablook was crying blood again. I felt bad, but didn't say anything.

Napstablook cried, "o no, u beat me m8, gotta practice more, l8r. fite me again next week." Suddenly, the laptops disappeared, Chara stood up again, and Napstablook had faded away.

Chara turned to look at me, and, seeing the expression of shock on my face, said, "What?"

I was filled...

with...

...

confusion?


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Hi! I've got a couple things to talk about in this author's note. First off, I hit 100 visitors. That's just insane, knowing 100 people took the time to read my story. I've decided to gauge my story's popularity based on visitors instead of reviews or favorites. The reason being that one person can give a lot of reviews, but when it comes to visitors, every person matters, and you can't just cheat unless you want to multiaccount.**

 **Secondly, I got a review asking how Frisk and Chara were able to dodge so well if they were only 10. The way I see it is that in the game Undertale, you control Frisk's actions, and make them dodge obstacles. Dodging in real life is a lot easier, so even though it's an Underfell-like universe, it's not as difficult to navigate through bullets from a first person perspective.**

 **The above review also mentioned how it was interesting that it took a turn to play a theme song. I actually believe this is canon, because in every single battle, the monster's theme song begins playing, then it's your turn. So this would just be the monsters using their first turn to play their theme song. The ONLY exception to this is Sans, who is both the only monster to not play his theme song instantly and the only monster to attack first. So Sans, unlike every other monster, uses his first turn to attack instead of play his theme song (which I consider to be Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans), and then Chara uses their turn to play their theme song.**

 **Now, enough messing around! It's time to purge this timeline—wait, I mean, it's time to start the story. Sorry, getting caught up on the Asriel boss fight.**

Chapter 5: Chara

Fighting against Napstablook was hard, and I think Frisk noticed. Actually, I was almost positive Frisk had noticed, considering how I had fallen on the ground gasping for air. But the SAVE point miraculously gave me back breath. I still wasn't sure how that worked, but it seemed to heal our injuries, which was good because I'd rather not wake up at a SAVE point being half-dead. It felt like a warm, gooey feeling spreading through my body, and I wondered if this was how healing magic felt like. I didn't think Flowey knew any healing magic, though, or else he would have healed his own injuries at the start. Thankfully, he looked a lot better now, and he seemed to remember when we loaded a save, but not when we reset. I was somewhat confused by all of this, but Frisk wanted to go forward, and I wasn't going to stop them just to think about why Flowey could remember saves and not resets when they were supposedly made out of the same magic.

But I was mildly preoccupied with the idea, and so I was grazed by one of the Froggit's bullets during our battle with them. Frisk seemed to have it under control, though, and I laughed as hard as they did when we scared the Froggits off. After all, there was something absolutely hilarious about demonic frogs hopping away in fear from someone who wanted to kiss them.

"You can stop your theme song now," Frisk said, and I noticed it was still playing.

"Oh, I forgot it was still playing," I responded, and after turning it off and saving again, Frisk and I were determined to continue. Flowey said there were two more puzzles, which didn't sound all that bad. We had crossed enough of them anyway, even if most were solved.

As we continued past the room with the three Froggits, we encountered another menacing room, again decked out in purple. This time, the rubble was more prominent than ever, but there was a clear path through the rocks clearly meant for Toriel. The tall spikes ahead signified that this puzzle was yet to be solved, and they blocked any view of the puzzle beyond. But there was a bright glow seeping through the holes between the spikes, which I assumed was either a very bright light or fire. And considering the fact that this place had no lightbulbs, I was going to assume the latter choice. Then I wondered to myself how we could see without any lights, when we were so far underground. I resolved to ask Flowey.

"Flowey? How does this place have lighting without any lightbulbs?" Frisk looked around comically; they seemingly hadn't noticed this dilemma.

"The magic down here is so concentrated that it takes almost no effort to create magical lighting. I don't really know the specifics."

I wanted to ask how he knew all this if he had been born as a flower, but now wasn't the time to press. We had a puzzle to solve.

There seemed to be decently large holes in the rubble, indicating side paths that we could probably take. I decided to take one of them, and promptly fell down from an unstable floor straight into a pit of spikes. Whoops. As pain coursed throughout my body, I watched as my heart—soul—shattered, and we were pulled back to the SAVE point.

The first thing I said when I got back was, "We are NOT doing this by trial and error. That hurt a lot. There has to be a good way to figure out which path is correct."

"You could, y'know, just test the floor on each path," said Flowey, and I realized how much of an idiot I was for not noticing that sooner. That was such a simple solution to a complex puzzle. But then again, I supposed the puzzle was made for people—monsters—whatever that only had one chance. We would have failed if we only had one chance, too, but that was true for most of the puzzles.

On the second path we tested, we found that on top of the spikes, in a place almost impossible to get, was a small faded ribbon, that looked more pink than the red it was supposed to be. But pink was a cute color, and I was sure Frisk wouldn't mind wearing it. But of course there was no possible way we could realistically obtain it.

I was about to move on, when Flowey shouted "Wait!" Frisk and I instinctively paused, and once again I was reminded of how much we trusted this flower, someone we hadn't even met an hour ago. But we both turned around, and Flowey was looking down the hole at the ribbon. "That's a faded ribbon. It must be an item from one of the other humans that fell down here. It's actually a lot more powerful than it looks, if it came from a human. It probably has a little bit of the human's magic in it. I'm not sure how that will help, but it has to help somehow. We should probably get it."

"But... how?" said Frisk, and I had to agree. There was no conceivable way to get that ribbon without instant death.

"I'm...still working on that part," said Flowey, and I mentally sighed. Of course Flowey would want to do something, but have no idea how to do it. It was just part of his character, I thought to myself. Anyways, we had a job to to, and I had no idea how to do it. I thought for a moment, then tried throwing a rock down there. It bounced off the spikes and rolled to one side. So no luck there. And Frisk couldn't fly, so that wasn't an option either.

Suddenly, I had a very insane idea. The pit wasn't that deep after all, so there was a chance it could work. "This is going to sound stupid, but...how about I hold Frisk by the ankles, lower them into there, they grab the ribbon, and come back out."

Flowey gaped. "What kind of idea is that? You could get your twin killed! Plus, I don't think you're strong enough to pull them out of the hole."

"No...it was a stupid idea, anyways."

"Wait," interjected Frisk. "What if Flowey helps pull me up? You're strong, right?"

"If I was strong," he responded, "I wouldn't have let a boulder land on me. But I think I have another idea. I'm a plant monster, so I can probably use vines. I'll just reach one down there and hope I have enough dexterity to get the ribbon out."

"Just poke it with a thorn," Frisk suggested, and I realized they did have some sense in them. They just didn't show it often.

"Okay." Flowey reached a small, thin vine down into the hole, and I realized how slender and fragile it looked. Flowey was so weak, because he hadn't killed anything. I hoped Flowey would soon get stronger and maybe have hope that we would escape this place. After a couple seconds, Flowey's vine retracted, and Flowey sighed in relief. Frisk looked worried, and I could guess why. If Flowey was struggling so hard to use that little vine, how could he possible survive out here?

"We'll protect you," I said to Flowey, but I knew I was really addressing Frisk's unanswered question. Flowey looked confused, and suddenly I realized how out of context that must have sounded.

"I don't need protection," said Flowey. But Frisk and I both knew that wasn't entirely true, and we both knew we would reset or load in case he got hurt.

Flowey offered the ribbon to me, and I said, "I'm good. Frisk can have it. I'd never wear a ribbon anyways." So Frisk put on the ribbon, and somehow that made them look even cuter. I didn't even know that was possible, but apparently it was.

"So," asked Frisk excitedly, "what kind of powers do I get?"

"Usually you need more than one item from a human for their magic to really accept you. I'm not sure which soul had the ribbon." He was lying, but it was more subtle this time. Frisk probably didn't notice. "But most of the humans that fell had more than one item. We should find them and collect them." Frisk nodded, and we kept testing paths.

On our fourth try, we finally found the switch, hiding behind one of the spikes. As Flowey reached a vine down to push it, I suddenly wondered about something.

"Flowey? What would happen if one of your vines was cut off or damaged?"

"What would happen in one of your arms was cut off or damaged? The same thing," he replied with some sarcastic snark. He seemed to be more comfortable being his normal self around us, which I really appreciated. Then I realized I was being appreciative of Flowey talking about my arm being chopped off, and I suddenly stopped my thoughts, not wanting to go any further.

Flowey lowered his vine, pressed the switch, and we turned around the bend onto the main path through the rubble. As soon as I saw the exit, I gasped. I expected fire, but I didn't expect a five foot tall barrier of fire separating the end of the RUINS and Toriel's home from the rest of the RUINS. I started heading towards it, when suddenly a new monster—some kind of eyeball—ran into us, probably looking to escape the fire. As soon as it saw us, however, it forgot it's earlier task and focused solely on killing us. Or at least that's what it looked like.

"That's a Loox," said Flowey, and that was the last thing he managed to say when the two of us were pulled into SOUL mode. The Loox's song just sounded like a remixed version of that of the Froggit: they sounded similar, but not quite the same. His attacks were very different from those of the Froggits, and it took me a turn or two just to get used to them. Surprisingly, Frisk didn't do too much worse than me, and even though they looked a little tired, they still looked determined to beat the Loox.

In between turns, we tried basically anything: threatening, complimenting, flirting. The Loox didn't even bat an eye. Which was good, because him batting his huge eye would probably send more bullets at us.

"We need to find out a way to beat this monster," I yelled to Frisk, and they nodded. Suddenly, I realized Frisk probably knew that already, and my comment to them was precious time we could use thinking. I spent the next turn trying to come up with a different solution, and though I got grazed by a few bullets and my heart looked ready to shatter, I thought I had come up with something. It was actually pretty simple.

"I hear Toriel," I said to the Loox, and it started running away as quickly as possible. That was pretty easy, I supposed.

"Before we continue into that puzzle—death trap—whatever, we should probably go back and save," said Flowey. So we did, and we thankfully didn't encounter any monsters on the way there. We also didn't encounter monsters on the way back, but I found that less surprising, as I assumed most monsters were fleeing from the heat of the fire.

As we approached the fire, my skin began to sear. I could feel it slowly burning away, so I took a step back, and then looked at the fire again. A five foot impenetrable wall, blocking the next puzzle. And we had no way of getting past it. Wait...

"Flowey?" I asked. "Can you just tunnel Underground and tell us what's on the other side of that fire?"

"Usually I'd tunnel straight through this puzzle, but I'll try going into the middle. If I do get caught by fire...please LOAD, okay? I don't want to die for real."

Frisk gave him a thumbs up, smiling. I nodded. We wouldn't let Flowey die for real. We were determined to make sure that wouldn't happen, no matter what.

Flowey popped into the ground. We waited a few seconds, and then heard Flowey's voice from the other side.

"It's hot here, but there's a switch. I think it turns off the fire. Here, let me press it." We heard a clicking sound, and the flames were deactivated. "Thank goodness. Usually I just tunnel through the RUINS, so I don't know how to solve the puzzles. But I've never seen this huge wall of fire before. Toriel must have created it recently."

"Well, it is a good idea," I said to Flowey. "Only Toriel can get through the fire, so nobody can get to her house. It still looks like we have a puzzle to solve, though," I said, pointing forward.

"This one's easy, I think. Just follow the instructions on the signs, and you should do fine."

The first sign said that the far door marked a rotation in perspective. Now, I was smart for a 10 year old, but I had to admit I had basically no idea what that could mean. Rotating your view? It made no sense. I tried spinning around in a circle, trying to rotate my perspective. It wasn't until Frisk was looking at me confusedly that I realized the entrance to the next room had been open the whole time. I wanted to slap myself. I was so stupid. But it didn't matter. We had a couple more rooms to traverse, according to Flowey when I asked him.

The next three rooms were almost self-explanatory. We read a sign, pressed the proper button, and moved on. I didn't see why this puzzle was here, after the fire, and why it wasn't a death trap, but I assumed it had been one of the old puzzles that hadn't been deactivated. And by "old puzzles" I meant one of he puzzles before they became death traps. There had to be some time when these puzzles were actually normal, if Toriel was consistently upgrading them and adding new features. Maybe at one time Toriel had been nice, and this world had been good? But...it seemed like those days were over. Everything left in this world was just...cruelty. Anyways, I didn't want to test what would happen if we pressed the wrong button. Toriel certainly should have renovated the puzzle at least a little bit.

After walking through the puzzle, I realized what the whole "rotation of perspective" meant. It just meant that we had seen the same room four times, but from a different angle each time.

As we walked through the last set of spikes, Flowey piped up. "Ahead of us is a nice outlook of the Ruins. Toriel usually doesn't visit, so I hid a toy knife over there. I think it's from the same human as the faded ribbon. Frisk, you can wear both of those. Hopefully their magic will accept you. To the left is Toriel's house, and a SAVE point. We'll go there next.

So we headed to the outlook of the Ruins, or, more specifically, what was left of the Ruins, and found the toy knife Flowey was talking about. Frisk put it on, and I noticed a light blue aura surrounding Frisk for a moment before fading away.

Flowey sighed in relief. "That means the magic has accepted you. That's the light blue soul. Each soul has their own color, items, and traits. I think the light blue one is Patience. I'm not really sure what kind of magic it has. I guess we'll find out."

We turned back and took a right turn, where a large tree blocked Toriel's house. The tree had lost all its leaves, which had fallen down onto the soil right next to the tree, forming a patch of leaves. We passed the tree, and I got a clear view of the house itself. It was mostly purple, and there was a large sign over the door, which looked just as menacing as the one leading into the Ruins looked. The sign read "HOME" in dark red letters. The windows were open, and through one of them, I spotted Toriel, carrying...a pie? Frisk froze, but she walked away without seeing us. Quickly, we touched the SAVE point together and saved our progress in case we died.

We had to enter Toriel's house soon, but I had a faint idea of what to do, and we had an infinite amount of tries. Knowing that we would eventually be able to help Toriel filled us with determination.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I've been planning this chapter from basically the start of the story. I'm honestly really excited.**

Chapter 6: Frisk

The house, surprisingly, didn't look all that scary. It was purple, mostly, which was a relatively soothing color, and the windows were bright and large. They carried magical light from the Ruins into the house. The simple walls and color made for a very welcoming and pleasant sight. Of course, the sign on top of the door, which read "HOME" in large red letters, contrasted with the rest of the building. Then again, it looked relatively new, like Toriel had added it recently just for the sake of matching with this horrendous place. After all, it was essentially impossible for a monster to get here. Did Toriel really have a soft side, building this nice house? Or had it already been built before Toriel began to kill monsters and grow powerful? Either way, it showed that there might be some good within Toriel. And any little bit of good was better than nothing. It was a tiny glimmer of hope.

The old tree behind us had lost all its leaves, but I noticed that the leaves hadn't looked cracked or crushed. For some reason, Toriel was avoiding stepping on them. And Flowey had told me to play my theme song, too. Maybe if we found enough of these weak points in Toriel, we could break through her shell. And maybe we could find a way to make her a better person. To make everyone in the Ruins a better person. I didn't know if we could, but we had to hope that one day, the Ruins would be a happy place.

Flowey sighed, and I focused on him. He looked uneasy and worried, so I tapped one of his petals to reassure him. Flowey paused for another moment, then spoke.

"Let me tell you a story. A long time ago, a human fell into the Ruins. They walked through a perfect Ruins. The rubble was gone. The purple walls looked clean and shiny. There were legitimate puzzles around here, instead of death traps. The monsters were all nice and helpful. They didn't try attacking or killing the human. Sometimes they'd have some fun, but they never attacked with the intent to kill. Some of the monsters even gave advice to the human. The Ruins were a happy home for the human.

When the human fell down, I saw them, but I didn't know any healing magic. Their ankle looked broken or at least sprained. I knew I had to get help quickly. So I went to one of the two monsters in the Ruins who knew healing magic: Toriel. Back then, Toriel was a nice person. She was dressed in a purple muumuu and didn't wear any red or black. Her horns were absolutely normal. She looked like a nice and welcoming monster, one of the nicest ones around. Oh, and the monsters were nice too. They were a variety of colors, instead of just red and black. Vegetoid was orange. Loox was green. They lived together like a family.

Anyways, the human fell into the Ruins, and I got Toriel. She healed the human, and took them to her home, guiding them through the puzzles and letting them talk to monsters on the way. They became almost a family. They lived together for almost a year. The Ruins was full of hope. Then, one day, Toriel heard of some information. I don't know how. She must somehow be getting information from the door to the rest of the Underground. But somehow, Toriel found of a prophecy. The prophecy said that one day, a human would fall into the Underground, and the Underground would go empty. The human thought they were the child. Toriel was worried, but she let them go free. And then they died.

Some uncountable number of years later, a second human fell into the Underground. They also made friends with all the monsters. Toriel resolved to never tell them of the prophecy. Somehow, they found out anyway. Toriel didn't know how. And one dark night, they escaped, too. It happened again, and again. Six times in total, a human fell into the Ruins, stayed for a while, found of the prophecy, and left.

About a year ago, Toriel discovered that a group of monsters had been telling the secrets of the prophecy to all the humans. She was enraged, and I cannot blame her. Because of a group of monsters, she had lost five children. She cursed the monsters, and she cursed the prophecy, too, hating both. Toriel decided to wage war on all of monsterkind. Monsters in the Ruins died left and right. The Ruins used to be a populated place. Now there are perhaps a hundred monsters left. Monsters began attacking each other, too, knowing that the only way they could defeat Toriel was by gaining LOVE. But even that spiraled out of control. Monsters began attacking their siblings, their mothers. Only a select few, like that band of Froggits, stayed together. Toriel's rampages turned clean walls into rubble. She turned what had been puzzles into death traps. But I don't understand why she hates the two of you so much. Why she hates humans, when you have done nothing wrong. So I don't know everything. But this...should make a lot more sense."

"It does," said Chara, still thinking. "But...why didn't you say this before?"

"I was afraid. Scared of you. I didn't trust you yet. Everyone had been so cruel, I forgot how nice humans were. I thought you were going to betray me, just like everyone else did. But when you said you were going to protect me, and you said you were going to RESET if I died, you looked genuine. I started believing you. So his might be a mistake, but I've told you all I know about Toriel." Chara's eyebrows furrowed. It seemed like they were thinking of a way to take advantage of all this.

But there wasn't any time. Toriel burst out of the door, but for once, didn't kill us immediately. As she opened her mouth to speak, I noticed a line of jagged teeth in her mouth, but then again, she was a goat. So I wasn't too surprised.

"Humans," said Toriel. "Prepare to breathe your last breaths."

"But before you kill us, can you make...hmm...a butterscotch pie, perhaps?" asked Flowey, taunting the woman. I could tell that he wasn't completely fearless, but he clearly seemed confident enough that Toriel didn't notice anything.

"You," spat Toriel. "Get out of here, before I kill you as well."

"Reeeeally? You'd kill me? That seems a little cold of you."

"Get out of my way," she hissed. "I don't have time for you. You have five seconds before I blast you to dust." Her teeth looked more prominent than ever. She glared at Flowey.

Flowey didn't even react. Toriel slowly counted down, and Flowey didn't even move. Suddenly, a huge fireball leaped into her hands. It was flaming orange and red, and I could feel its heat from feet away. She threw it at Flowey, but he simply ducked underground. As the fireball passed us, the heat only became more intense, until it felt like it was burning my skin off. The fireball barreled past where Flowey has been and struck the large tree. Just from the force, the tree fell over, before bursting into flames.

Suddenly, I realized what Toriel had done. She had destroyed a living creature—even if it was a tree—just out of anger. I knew she had done it to countless other monsters, and killed us before, but that felt different. We could go back and undo it. The tree had been staying there for what seemed like hundreds of years, considering its size. Now it was sprawled on the ground, burning massively and giving off huge puffs of smoke, which filled my lungs and made it hard to breathe. Toriel had just killed something, in front of my very eyes. Chara didn't even react—I didn't expect them too—but I knew that in any other situation I probably would have jumped on Toriel, for that very reason. For killing someone—or something—that had lived happily for hundreds of years. All gone in an instant. I felt like pummeling her. But I didn't. I was filled with PATIENCE, the patience to wait and perhaps save Toriel.

Toriel laughed, that insane laugh of someone who was evil, knew they were evil, and didn't care at all. I wondered why she was so cruel. Was it really just the corruption of LOVE? Or did she have a deeper meaning for her actions? I couldn't tell. After finishing her maniacal laugh, her mouth twisted into a smile. But her eyes glared at us, almost as if she was saying, "You're next." She seemed ready to fight us. Ready to kill us.

And suddenly, Chara did react. I thought they were unfazed by the death of a tree. But it seemed I was wrong. Faster than I could see, they dashed to Toriel, tapped her on the shoulder, as like a miniature punishment, or a warning, and then ran away, smiling. Toriel looked around in shock. Clearly, she hadn't seen Chara. But when she noticed Chara was out of breath, her eyes furrowed in uncontrolled anger. She conjured another fireball, and I could once again feel its searing heat. I could see she was preparing to throw it at Chara.

It was an instinct. I leaped towards them, and pushed them out of the way. Toriel's eyes widened in shock. I wondered how long it had been since she had seen one person sacrifice their life for another. I wondered how long it had been since she had seen true compassion. Caring for another person so much that they would sacrifice their life to save that person. Before the fireball was even sent at me, I could see the sadness in her eyes. The unimaginable regret. The memory of someone who had given their life to save others.

But it was too late. The fireball crashed towards me, hurtling at an unimaginable speed. I wanted to try dodging. I knew I couldn't, but I wanted to run as far away from that fireball as possible. I didn't want to die again. I didn't want to experience pain all over again. But somewhere deep within me, there was a burning feeling I can't describe. I felt like my soul was becoming stronger. I was filled with Patience. And suddenly I could feel an aura around me, almost as if someone else was helping me. Helping me to survive. Helping me to withstand Toriel's attacks. Helping me to stay patient, and strong.

The fireball went straight through me and crashed on the ground.

Toriel gaped. Literally. I could see every single one of her sharp, jagged teeth. "But...how? How can you—"

"Patience," I responded, cutting her off. The words fell naturally from my mouth, and I wondered if the spirit of the human—for that was what it was—was helping me find he right words. "The patience to face obstacles with unwavering certainty. The patience to continue forward. The patience to know when to fight and when to wait. And the patience to do both of those things. Don't you understand? This is patience." I spotted Flowey hiding in a corner of the room. He looked just as shocked as Toriel. Chara seemed shocked, but a little less so. They knew that some souls had magical powers. They knew that I could do things like this. They knew that Patience had power.

Now was the time. Toriel seemed shocked. She had been so stunned by my ability. And she was stunned by my unwavering loyalty to Chara, my willingness to sacrifice myself in order to save others. It had seemed to spark some memory within her. Now was the time to capitalize on that weakness. I was ready to show that I was strong, not physically, but in the soul. And I knew just the way to express myself in my true form.

I began playing my theme song.

I cannot describe in words how joyous my theme song was. It began with a simple tune, one that could easily be played on any instrument. But it carried so much power, so much joy. I knew it did, and I can't find the words to explain it. Then the actual song kicked in, and that was the same theme, but according to Chara "ten times better." Then began a stretched-out, echoey part with another great melody. The same thing repeated once more before becoming more clear and adding extra notes to enhance the music. There was also a second theme, which started off quiet and slowly built up. Flowey gasped as soon as he heard this part, and I wondered why. Then came the theme at the echoey part again, before "an epic transition" to one final section, before a short and beautiful ending.

Toriel waited until the very end of the song, and I could see the pained expression on her face. She looked as though she was on the verge of tears, but I couldn't tell whether they were tears of joy or tears of sadness, or perhaps both.

"No!" she screamed out. "NO! Get away from me! I don't need anyone! Stop it! Stop it now!" She went a massive wave of fireballs at us. Chara weaved through them. I stood my ground, and they passed through me. All of the landed behind us, and crashed into the ground, creating a massive wall of fire. I ignored the pain.

I knew what I had to do. There was one last trick up my sleeve, one last thing I had planned for but hadn't told Flowey or Chara. I paused for a moment, then spoke.

"Don't worry, it's okay...Mom."

That was enough for Toriel. She collapsed to the ground, crying. The fire dissipated around us. I could still feel the remnants of the heat, but the pain was gone now. I moved up to Toriel and kneeled down next to her, patting her on the back. Her fur was soft and fuzzy, and it really did feel like that of a goat. Chara stayed away.

"Shhh...it's going to be okay. We forgive you. It'll all be alright."

It took minutes for Toriel to stop crying. By the time she finally did so, Chara had come over too, and started comforting Toriel on her other side. When Toriel was done crying, she began to speak.

"My children...I am so sorry. I did so many horrible things. I hurt so many monsters. I killed so many monsters. I nearly killed you two, as well." She had killed us, multiple times, but that was beyond the point. "There is no way to make up for what I have done. Kill me, kill me and purge this world of a horrible creature." Toriel offered her heart, looking primarily at me, because I had the toy knife. But Chara and I both knew we would never harm a creature, even if it killed us. Even if it killed us a thousand times, we would keep trying to do the right thing. We would save, not kill. That was how it worked in this world—in our world.

"No," I responded, and I realized that even though Chara knew what to say, they were letting me speak instead. "You've done terrible things, yes, but you can make up for them. The monsters outside still follow 'kill or be killed.' Only you can make the Ruins a better place for everyone. Only you can dissolve the traps, and make the Ruins like it was just a few years ago. You have the power to do the right thing. Killing you now would hurt the entirety of the Ruins. We need you. We need you to help us all."

Toriel did not speak for a moment. She seemed to hesitate. "I...I'm not sure if I can control them, now. If I stay alive, I might just begin killing again. My LOVE is too high. LOVE corrupts."

I smiled, and helped pull her to her feet. When she was standing up, I looked at her. "As long as you have us here, we believe you can do the right thing. And we'll stay with you...mom."

That was enough for Toriel. She walked with us, back to her home, and showed us our room. That night, she made us butterscotch pie for dessert, and we stayed together. We watched as Toriel called off the "kill or be killed" policy. We watched as she turned death traps back into puzzles. The Ruins slowly turned back into its normal state. Monsters stopped killing each other. What was left of families were brought together. Spiders—well, spiders just did what they always do. Being stingy and giving out food made of spiders, that is. Monsters in the Ruins began living in peace.

I wanted to stay here forever. Toriel was a wonderful mother. She taught us about monster history, about how monsters were trapped Underground, how they travelled from Home to New Home. But any time either of us got close to why the king, Asgore, created the 'kill or be killed' policy, Toriel would divert the subject. I didn't press. Chara tried once, and they were harshly reprimanded. She made us butterscotch pie on weekends. I once asked how monsters knew it was a weekend, and apparently the king had a huge calendar which kept track of all the years they had been trapped down here. She showed us her favorite bug hunting spot. We drew with crayons and markers, like little kids. I felt... like this was my home, now. And I know Chara had the same opinion.

Then, about a week after we had become part of the Ruins, Chara woke me up at midnight. I was somewhat annoyed, but I knew it must be important, so they had my full attention when they spoke.

"Flowey doesn't like it here," said Chara, and I felt my heart sink. I had hoped that for once, we had found a place where everyone was happy. But if Flowey wasn't satisfied, we had to keep journeying onwards. We had to keep persevering, at all odds. I wanted to be patient, but...I couldn't. Suddenly, I felt the aura of patience, which had stayed with me since the Toriel fight, disappear. I looked at my toy knife and faded ribbon. They didn't look magical anymore. I wasn't sure I could tell whether or not they were magical, but I decided to keep the items, anyway, in my pockets. Perhaps we'd need them again sometime, or Chara would be able to use them. I doubted both, but I kept them just in case.

Chara and I discussed whether we would leave or go for the next couple minutes, and then Flowey popped up. He didn't give a straight reason for why we had to go, just that "there are more people that need to be saved." He also said, "We can come back here if we don't find a better home. But...there are things I want to do. No, there are things I have to do. We should get to Asgore. Maybe stop this whole 'kill or be killed' thing." Chara agreed, so I went with them. We had infinite tries, and we could always come back to the ruins if anything went wrong. We saved, then went to ask Mom.

But Toriel didn't take the news as easily. "Save Asgore? You do not understand. Asgore has murdered six humans. There is nothing left of him to save. You will be killed in a world such as this. You managed to survive the Ruins without killing through pure luck. No, if you do go...prove to me you are strong enough to survive."

"I still have my patience," I bluffed, hoping she wouldn't test it out. "And Chara's good at dodging. Look, Chara, you can show her!"

We hadn't fought anybody in a week. I hoped Chara wasn't rusty, or anything like that.

"Survive my onslaught," she said, "and I will let you go." The fireballs that came must have been twice the speed that they had been the first time we fought Toriel. Chara got hit almost immediately. Toriel didn't know her own strength, and against someone with a LOVE of 1, Chara died as soon as the first fireball hit her soul. But when we were revived, they looked determined to try again. It took 23 attempts before Chara finally dodged every single one of them, and Toriel let us go, with a farewell hug.

Knowing that we were prepared to leave the Ruins and hopefully SAVE Asgore...

filled us with determination.

 **A/N: And there you have it! The end of the Ruins arc. I'm very bad at writing the aftermath of boss fights, that's why the ending is rushed. It's also partially because I'm trying to keep my chapters consistently 3000 words, and this is already 3500. Since this is the end of a major arc, there won't be an update on Wednesday. I'm taking a break to plan out the second arc. After that, updates will be back to biweekly like normal.**

 **I hope you have a great weekend. Bye!**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Chara

After I finally beat Toriel, which, according to Frisk, took 23 attempts, Flowey and Frisk seemed ready to journey off into sunshine and daisies. I wasn't so sure, so I took some extra precautions, like saving in case we couldn't find another SAVE point before we died, and actually packing food in an old backpack that Toriel had said she had gotten from another of the fallen humans. I wondered to myself why that fallen human hadn't taken their backpack when they were leaving. Anyways, after I cleared up all the minor problems, we were ready to journey off and hopefully not die every few feet. According to Toriel, the defenses outside the Ruins would be much stronger, and at points we would come across unsolvable puzzles or more dangerous death traps.

When we asked Toriel what kind of people could be outside the door, she sighed and said, "Now that you are leaving, my children, I suppose I have no choice but to tell you. After Asgore decided to Underground was kill or be killed, I fled from the rest of the Underground and returned to the Ruins. I never thought that I, too, would become one of them. I do not know much about who is alive now and which people would be a threat. There are only two people that I know will be a barrier to leaving this place. The first is the Captain of the Royal Guard, which was originally dedicated to keeping peace. Her name is Undyne, and she was always strong and powerful before I left. I can hardly imagine how bloodthirsty and vicious she might be now. The other is the Royal Scientist, Dr. Alphys. She was never particularly smart or powerful, but she was cunning, and I'm sure Asgore would have put her skills to good use.

Whatever you do, do not let Asgore take even one of your souls. Asgore already has six human souls; with the power of seven, he will become a god. He will destroy the barrier and wage war on all of humanity. And considering how powerful the monsters are, and how powerful they will be when every monster gains a human soul, I fear that humanity will be destroyed as quickly as monsters were in the last war." Toriel looked worried, and I realized that if Asgore got a seventh human soul, he would be able to shatter the locked door to the Ruins and destroy the entirely of the Ruins. There was more than just our lives at stake, here. But with the power to SAVE, LOAD, and RESET, we were practically gods. There was no way Asgore would be able to get another human soul.

"There are three major areas you must pass before you reach the CORE, which leads directly to the King's castle. The first is Snowdin. Knowing that all humans who pass through here must come through the Ruins, I suspect that this area will have the strongest defenses. I am not sure what people you may meet in this area. Perhaps other members of the Royal Guard. This will likely be your hardest obstacle to get past." That was bad news, but at least we wouldn't encounter Undyne or Dr. Alphys in these areas. "Further is Waterfall, which Undyne lives in and often patrols. It is possible that you will encounter her multiple times. Waterfall is often very wet, so it is perfect for Undyne, who is a fish. She will have no trouble attacking you in this area; however, if you manage to escape from her and reach the next area, Hotland, you may have a chance. Hotland is often burning, and Undyne probably cannot withstand the heat. However, your next enemy, Dr. Alphys, lives there, and will probably set up traps for you. When you reach the CORE, there is an elevator designed for monsters to quickly travel from there to New Home and Asgore's castle. Your best option there is to probably disguise yourself as a monster and ride up to the surface, hopefully bypassing the monsters in the CORE, which are immensely strong, perhaps even stronger than me. From there, you will reach New Home, which is where Asgore's castle is. I have no idea what the defenses there might be like, if there are any. Monsters used to be very populated there, but with the new policy, I do not know how many remain."

"That is all I have to say for now. Be good, won't you? My children." Knowing that we were ready to begin our arduous quest filled us with determination.

After packing some ButtsPie, which both of us loved, we were ready to set off. We saved one last time before walking down into the basement. We walked down a long corridor, which gave me time to think. Toriel hadn't told us much, in retrospect. Who was Asgore? How could we help him? Why was the kill or be killed policy initiated in the first place? And why did I feel like there was one big secret that Toriel was hiding from us? None of it made sense, but I was sure Toriel was hiding something. And maybe we needed that something to help Asgore. But I knew Toriel had told us all she could without cracking herself. I didn't want to ask more questions. She had been such a help to us, and such a kind mother. I didn't want her to remember things she was clearly trying to hide away.

And then there was the whole task of what we were going to do after we called off the kill or be killed policy. Most monsters had too much LOVE to easily become better people. Even though "kill or be killed" wasn't a rule, monsters would still attack each other anyways. There really was no escape from it, no matter what we did, but I stayed hopeful. Perhaps the king would help society, just like Toriel did in the Ruins. Maybe with enough time, even the worst monsters, like Undyne, would change. Everyone just needed a second chance. Everyone could be a little better. Or so I hoped.

I was interrupted from my musings by Flowey, who I was somewhat annoyed with for making us leave. I wasn't necessarily mad at him, but I knew if it weren't for him, we'd be happily living the rest of our life with Toriel. In fact, the three of us had even taken to calling her mom, because of how nicely she treated us. But even then, I knew I, too, would never be satisfied just waiting my life there. Life would become boring, after a while. There would be so much to do in the outside world. Perhaps Frisk, with Patience by their side, could stay forever, but I couldn't. I wasn't adventurous, or curious, but I knew that something was missing in our lives, whatever that may be. So eventually, even if Flowey wasn't there to expedite the process, I would leave myself.

"I want to tell you another story," said Flowey. "I don't know exactly how I was born, or created, or whatever. But I remember waking up in the king's garden. I don't think I had any parents, unless they abandoned me. And I've never seen another plant monster before. I didn't like being a flower. I had no arms, or legs, and I couldn't walk or run or anything." Flowey was talking as though he once had all those things, which made no sense. But I wasn't in the mood to think more about it. Flowey continued. "'Somebody help!' I called out. I cried into the darkness, hoping and praying that someone would save me." Flowey lowered his voice, and almost hissed his next few words. "But nobody came." Flowey resumed his normal talking voice, and I was a little creeped out. I didn't know that Flowey could be that scary at times. But I kind of envied his ability to act very creepy at times. It would be a good talent to have.

"It was then that I saw my first SAVE point. I was just as confused as you probably were. But I saved, anyways, and continued down to New Home. You see, I didn't know the world was kill or be killed," he continued. "So when I traveled from the king's garden to New Home, I was expecting to be greeted warmly. I was expecting to maybe find a place to stay or get something to do. Instead, I died." Flowey paused for a moment, probably for dramatic effect. "I don't think I have to explain how painful death was. I'm just going to say this: It hurt. A lot." I nodded my head. Death became slightly less painful as it happened over and over again, but there was no forgetting how immensely painful our first few deaths were, by Toriel's hands. "Then I woke up. Back in the garden. Back at my SAVE point. I experimented for a while. Trying to save, load, reset. It wasn't all too bad if you didn't die when it happened. But the point is, that's how I know about all these things. About saving, and loading, and resetting altogether. Because I went through all of it."

Flowey stopped talking, and I realized how much effort it must have taken him to say all that. That was clearly a heartfelt confession, and I was impressed with him for talking about stuff that he clearly wanted to hide away, just like Toriel. He was never much of an open person, but this solved a couple of my questions. Not all of them, though. He seemed to know things that he never could have figured out if he was a flower. And he kept talking like he hadn't always been a flower. But what could he have been before? A human reincarnated as a flower? Perhaps a monster? The second option made some sense, so I decided to go with that guess.

"I… have something to say too," said Frisk. "I don't have Patience anymore." Over time, we had grown to think of patience like a person, a spirit following Frisk around and helping them be patient and withstand onslaughts. That's how Frisk described it, so I decided to go along with their viewpoint. We named the spirit Patience, because clearly neither Frisk nor I had the creativity to come up with an original name. So I was somewhat shocked when Frisk said they didn't have their spirit guide following them around.

"What? But you said Patience would be around forever, and you told mom that, too!"

"I lied to mom," they responded, "so we could leave. Patience left the moment I decided to follow you guys and leave the Ruins. Because leaving wasn't a very patient decision. I mean, I still have the toy knife and faded ribbon, but I don't think they'll help me anymore. Here, I'll put the in the backpack. I guess we'll keep them. Maybe we'll come across Patience again." I doubted it, but it was probably a good idea to keep it in case. It felt wrong to just throw them away. "We...we should keep going. Asgore's castle is still pretty far away."

"Yeah," I agreed. We found a small patch of dirt at the end of the long corridor, and even though we had just left, we decided to wait there for a bit so Flowey could stay in the dirt and get nutrients. The three of us took a little nap, and when we woke up, Flowey looked more energized and ready to continue. We hadn't seen dirt in so long that I was happy we had found some here. I hoped we'd find more patches of dirt as we continued through the Underground. But there wasn't much time to waste. Together, we opened the large purple door leading to the rest of the Underground.

As the three of us stepped out into the world beyond, the door instantly shut behind us. I marveled at how powerful the magic must be, for it to close such a large door, all on it's own, with that kind of speed. There was no wonder the monsters outside the Ruins couldn't open it. In fact, it was something of a miracle that all three of us managed to walk through the doorway before the door slammed shut behind us. As I turned back to see it, I noticed what Toriel had called the Delta Rune, the symbol of the monster kingdom and royalty. In fact, the delta run was prevalent on most of the doors in the Ruins, including the first entrance we walked through to meet Flowey. The Delta Rune was also prominent on Toriel's red and black clothing in the very front, where everyone could see it. I wondered why she was wearing the Royal symbol if she wasn't a member of the royalty. Unless, perhaps, she was a member of the royalty. But that seemed impossible. Toriel being the queen? Then, I realized, Toriel had only talked about "the king", never mentioning the queen or any other possible members of the royal family. Perhaps Toriel was in fact the queen. It was too bad that I noticed all of this after we left the Ruins, so I couldn't ask her questions. And I wasn't willing to load just for the opportunity to ask mom a couple questions.

As I turned around again to look at the scenery and not the door, I noticed two things. The first, and most prominent, was that there was a barrier of spikes five feet tall right in front of us. The spikes extended not only from the bottom but from the top, attached to a makeshift ceiling that hung over us and blocked the view above. Thankfully, the room was still lit, due to magic. But I couldn't see anything but the metal ceiling above us and the teeth-like spikes in front of us. I tried punching the ceiling and inspecting the spikes for any gap Flowey could fit through, but I found nothing. And if we loaded our SAVE file, we'd have the same dilemma. There was only one good way to put it: we were trapped, and there was no escape.

The second thing I noticed was the bone-chilling cold. I curled my arms around myself in an attempt to keep warm, and Flowey seemed to do the same with his petals. Thankfully, Toriel had jackets which she had knitted, but Flowey didn't have any protection from the cold. Furthermore, permafrost beneath the ground prevented Flowey from digging and tunneling under the snow. According to Flowey, there were no cracks he could slip through, unlike in the Ruins. So that trick wouldn't work anymore. The cold made it hard to think, and I wanted to hear Frisk's theme song, but I knew we couldn't afford to be seen.

"This…" began Flowey, "this wasn't here before. Back when I was in Snowdin, sure there were death traps and all, but there wasn't just a big barrier blocking the door to the Ruins! I mean, it's pretty smart, now a human can't get in or out of here, but still, this feels somewhat unfair. But then again, King Asgore doesn't play nice. We can't expect anything but unfair puzzles and death traps here. And this is the most deadly death trap I've seen in this place. Unless someone comes here, we'll freeze to death. Or maybe we'll die of starvation, whichever one comes first. And worse off, if someone comes here, I don't know what they'll do. Probably kill us, seeing as we're humans. Basically, we have no chance of escaping. Maybe we should just load and go back to mom's house."

"No," said Frisk and I simultaneously. I looked at them in shock; I wasn't expecting them to agree with me. But we both knew that Flowey, at the least, wouldn't be happy living there. And neither of us were willing to living in a world where Flowey, our guide and companion throughout our journey, wasn't happy. Plus, I was getting bored of living in the same small house in such a small, isolated place. Frisk probably would have gotten bored even faster if they hadn't had Patience with them. So in any case, neither of us wanted to go back.

Flowey looked surprised. "Really?" He was silent for a moment, probably thinking about why we were doing this. "Tha—thanks. I didn't know you cared about me that much." He looked guilty, probably because he wasn't telling us everything when we cared for him so much. But we wasn't offering any more information, and I didn't want to ask him about stuff he didn't want to talk about. Then, I realized there was a way to make him feel better. I could make him feel valuable—no, I could make him valuable—by asking for help on something that he knew about, but we didn't. And I had the perfect idea for what I was going to ask him.

"Flowey?" I said. "Do you have any idea who might be in Snowdin. Like who might try to kill us?"

He thought for a bit. "Well, there's the Royal Guard, which is almost entirely composed of dogs. Usually I can distract them with sticks, but recently they got training from Undyne to ignore that weakness, so I really have no idea how you would deal with them. Then there's Papyrus, Undyne's second-in-command. He's a skeleton, pretty tall, and decked out in red and black. He's one of the most vicious monsters in the Underground: perhaps even second, with the first being Undyne, of course. He takes joy in watching other people suffer, and from what I've seen, he likes to… toy with his prey before killing them." Frisk looked ready to throw up, and I wasn't feeling too great either. "But hopefully, we won't get captured by hi—"

Flowey was cut short by the noise of the spikes from the top and bottom retracting. The light almost glared us, and when my vision cleared I realized that Flowey had given a pretty good description. His mouth was twisted into a jagged smile, and his left eye looked to have a scar over it, if skeletons could scar. He was wearing a red scarf, and had a black top that protruded out from either side near his shoulders. His spine was visible, and he was wearing red spiky gloves, and an equally spiky belt with a golden skull on it. His black pants were engulfed by huge red boots, which spiked up at the top. This was Papyrus, and he looked about ready to kill us.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I know, this chapter is a week late. I'm really sorry about that. My only excuse is "life". I'm currently at a summer camp, and homework is killing me, so expect updates for the next couple weeks to be sporadic. In better news, I hit 500 views! I actually hit 600, but 500 is a nicer milestone. In celebration, this chapter has an extra 1000 words. So enjoy!**

Chapter 8: Frisk

The room we were in was dark. I could feel the dark enclosing around me, almost like a second skin. It circled around, looking to feed on our souls. That sounded like something Chara would say, I mused to myself. It was cold, too, chilling me to the bones. I could barely feel my fingers or toes because the cold was numbing them. I was scared that we would be trapped in that small corner of Snowdin forever, stuck right outside the Ruins and unable to get back to Mom's house. Maybe we would starve to death here, or better yet, freeze to death. I wondered all of a sudden why my thoughts were so dark. It must have been Chara's influence finally getting to me.

I was scared, too, of the world beyond. Chara always said I was adventurous and brave, but I wasn't so sure. And even if I used to be brave, the last week with Patience by my side had surely quelled those characteristics. I wanted to go back to Mom and eat butterscotch pie and catch bugs together. And it was only now that I realized that if we saved our here, and we probably had to, we might never see Mom again. Especially with the huge locked door blocking us off from the Ruins. As I looked back, I realized that the door could be the last purple thing I saw for a while, which was a shame, since I was really starting to grow on that color. The door also had a large Delta Rune on it, which Mom had told us was the symbol of the kingdom. Mom... I missed her, already. I missed Patience, too. Patience was a good friend to talk to, even though they never said much about themselves. But it was nice to have someone to talk to.

So I was pleasantly surprised when the door opened and sunlight streamed in. It felt warm on my skin, partially making up for the freezing cold, though I could still feel some of it under my skin. And the darkness was quickly fading too, hiding away. Within moments, the room was entirely filled with light. The sun glared in my eyes, and my vision was blinded for a couple seconds. It was then that I realized that the person opening the door might not be nice. In fact, considering Toriel's description of life outside the Ruins, there was a good chance that whoever opened the door was in fact one of our enemies. So I was somewhat conflicted on whether the door opening was a good thing or a bad thing. As my vision cleared, I noticed a tall figure standing in my view. A few moments later, I realized it was a skeleton, clad in red and black spiky clothing. He looked menacing, with a jagged smile that revealed his intentions towards us.

Papyrus—for that was who the skeleton probably was—didn't even react in surprise to seeing two humans, which I found unusual. Had he ever seen a human before? Perhaps he did make some expression, but without skin, I had no idea what it might be. In either case, he didn't visibly react to seeing us, at least not for the first few seconds. Then he smirked, and began to speak.

Papyrus spoke in a loud, jagged voice that matched his personality, or what we had seen of it, perfectly. His voice sounded like razors, sharp and cutting. I wondered how someone could even sound evil in their voice. Even Toriel didn't sound that bad, and she was a demon when we first met her, all those days ago. "Heh heh heh...two humans? What a surprise? Isn't this interesting! We have, what, siblings? Twins? Friends? Oh, you'll enjoy this. Two humans..." He seemed drunk on happiness, though his cruel expression didn't change, and neither did his sharp voice. "One for me, yes, and one for Asgore. In fact...Asgore doesn't even need to know this one exists. You!" he yelled, pointing at me. "Out!"

With apprehension, I slowly made my way out of the room and into the sunlight, Flowey still wrapped around my wrist. I wondered if the two had ever met, or more specifically, if Flowey had ever met Papyrus in the current timeline. I doubted it; as Flowey said himself, he was a coward, and he probably hid and fled from every monster he found. How else would he have made it to the Ruins without dying? For a moment, I was happy, with the sunlight on my skin and fresh air blowing through my hair. Then I realized what Papyrus had meant by one for him and one for Asgore. Chances off I was being marched to see Asgore and be butchered, but Chara... I didn't want to finish that thought. Unfortunately, it was finished for me by Papyrus. "And you!" he almost yelled. "Stay here. I will come back for you...later."

The door slammed shut between me and Chara, and I wanted to scream, or cry, or fall to the ground motionless. Flowey had taught us to LOAD without RESETting, and I wanted to do that, too, but I knew the same result would probably happen. No, the only thing I could possibly do was wait here and follow Papyrus's orders. Maybe I could escape from him when the time came. But for now, I was trapped and alone. Without Chara. I didn't know how many times I had ever thought that phrase to myself. 'Without Chara.' It was rare, for sure. It was always the two of us together, like a bond. I wasn't supposed to be separated from them. That just wasn't possible. It didn't make sense. We were a unit.

But there was nothing I could do. Papyrus marched me away, and the long corridor ahead was mostly a blur. I couldn't think very well. Right before I walked along a thin and unsteady bridge, that looked like it was on the verge of collapse, I felt a little tugging on my wrist. I looked down, and noticed Flowey. The I realized that at least I wasn't completely alone. Flowey was company, perhaps not the company I was looking for, but company nonetheless. And I would take any sort of company I could. I had to hold onto something, anything, anyone. Suddenly, I felt a rush of energy flowing through me. I was ready to travel, even without Chara. I would find a way to escape form Papyrus and find Chara again. There had to be some way. We would get out of Snowdin, no matter how long it took. Knowing that eventually I would succeed filled me with determination.

When I came to focus again, I realized Flowey was pointing at the bridge. Now that I was fully in focus, I inspected it again. The bridge was narrow and would make for a precarious walk. Above the bridge and to either side was a row of deadly sharp spikes, even sharper that the ones in the Ruins. I did not want to imagine the pain the would come form being impaled on one of those. The crossbeam above the bridge was very high, probably to allow Papyrus to walk across it. Suddenly, I realized why Flowey was pointing to the bridge. One of the ropes holding the bridge up looked a little worn and about ready to break. And I still had that toy knife in my backpack; even if it wasn't magical, it still served as a good tool for cutting ropes. I had a plan, and I was ready to execute it.

"Look! A human!" I screamed, pointing towards one of the many trees.

Luckily, and hilariously, Papyrus actually fell for the trick. "Where?" he said, comically looking around. But I wasn't planning to answer. Before Papyrus had even realized what was going on, I had taken the knife out of my backpack, dashed across the bridge, and sliced the rope. The bridge crashed against the opposite wall, creating a large thump that probably alerted every monster around. But I didn't care. Papyrus was on one side of the bridge, and I was on the other. I had escaped, but there was all of Snowdin to get through, and I had to free Chara, too. I still had a lot of work to do, but I was filled with determination to do it.

Surprisingly, Papyrus didn't give chase. I expected him to use his magical powers as a monster to repair the bridge or make a new one, but he did neither. He simply grinned a wicked smile at me, and despite me successfully escaping, I felt like I had somehow lost.

"Don't you remember?" he said. "I have two humans. Run all you want. Your little friend here is going to be my personal pet." For a moment, I was worried for Chara's safety, but I realized that they couldn't die, and they had a chance of escaping and joining me. In fact, as I thought about it, I realized this was a blessing in a way; now, at least, we had a chance. And no matter how slim those chances were, I would take it.

Then Papyrus spoke again, and my heart sank. "And you have all of Undyne's Royal Guard to get past. Don't think you're free, either. You'll go to the capital, one way or another." I realized the truth in his words. And worse, I didn't dare save without Chara with me. Messing with magic could have unexpected consequences, according to Flowey. If either of us died, we'd have to go through all of this over again. And I doubted we'd get exactly the same results twice in a row, due to luck. I could understand why Flowey looked so worn down and beaten up when we had first met him: Retrying this a hundred or a thousand times would break even the strongest. But for this attempt, at least, I was determined, and the three of us would eventually succeed.

Before Papyrus could break my renewed morale, I dashed off, not daring to look back. The trees closed in on me, enclosing me within their hold. The spiky branches looked like weapons, to tear me into a hundred or a thousand pieces. Each and every mark looked like a part of a jagged smile, the faces leering at me, seeming to say "You can't escape." The shadows closed in, leaving nothing but dark and cold ahead. Suddenly, I realized that I was thinking such dark thoughts, almost like Chara would. I wondered why. Perhaps it was because of the general atmosphere of this place, dark and cold. Perhaps it was just Flowey and Chara rubbing off on me, with their dark personalities. I couldn't tell. But I knew that no matter how many tries it took, we would succeed. And as I realized that we could eventually do this, the trees seemed to recede. The light grew larger, and I once again had hope in a better future. A future where monsters could live happily, without having to kill or be killed.

As I passed the trees, I noticed a blue lamp about my height to my left. Right next to it was a normal-looking sentry station. I wondered why it hadn't been turned red or dark, like the rest of this place. As I passed, I noticed there were bottles of ketchup, mustard, and relish inside. Weird. I didn't have time to think about it, though. I dashed past it, and saw the glistening light of a SAVE point up ahead. But I knew I couldn't save, not without Chara. I just had to hope they would be okay. And I would to. Beyond the SAVE point, there was a crossroads. To the left, there seemed like a relatively harmless bandanna lying in the snow. It looked like an item from one of the humans that fell down.

I was about to take a quick detour and take it, when Flowey screamed "Stop!" Surprised, I crashed to a halt, sending snow flying into the air ahead of me. I looked towards him, clearly expecting an explanation.

"First off," he said, "That's probably trapped. Why would there be a human's item just lying on the ground there? It's clearly bait for some human who wants it. Plus, I doubt we'll come across the other item, on the run like this. We just have to hope Chara will get it, and even if they don't, we probably don't need the magic anyways. Second, I was going to tell you more about the Royal Guard, but Papyrus interrupted me. They're dogs, I said that, and there are five of them. I only know that one of them, Doggo, is blind. I have no idea about the weaknesses of the rest. And two of them, they love each other, like sickly sweet nose nuzzling. That's...basically all I was going to say." He seemed flustered. "But go ahead. Doggo's station is there. You might see him, you might not. And if you do, make sure to not move, and don't make any noise. If he can't hear you, he can't find you."

Cautiously, I followed Flowey's instructions. I tiptoed into the area, and spotted a dog sitting inside another sentry station, just as Flowey had said. He didn't see me, so I started tiptoeing forward, making sure to not make a sound. Then I stepped on a stray leaf, and it crunched beneath my shoe. Doggo perked his ears up, and every muscle in my body froze simultaneously in fear. I couldn't do anything as Doggo opened his mouth and spoke. "Who's there?" he said. I didn't dare answer. With frightening slowness, he got up from his station and started to move out. I could barely move. I knew I was caught. I could only watch as Doggo slowly came over to me, holding his paws out so he could catch anyone in his way.

Suddenly, I had an insane idea. I crouched to the ground, being careful to not make a noise. Doggo's paws stretched over me, and he tested the area where he had heard the noise, waving his arms around. My face was perhaps half an inch away from his left leg. I tried my best to not move, but I could feel my muscles started to get tired. With the same slowness, Doggo retreated. I slowly returned to my normal position, standing up, and began my tiptoeing away. When I finally reached a distance that I thought was out of earshot, I collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily. That was close. Too close.

Flowey echoed my words. He seemed shocked too that my strategy had somehow worked. In fact, I could barely call it a strategy; it was an on-the-spot decision that by all means should have failed. But it didn't, for whatever insane reason, and I would take every bit of luck I got. Up ahead, there was an icy path, and another crossroads. As I slipped across, I noticed a lone snowman to the left. "That has to be a trap," I told Flowey.

"Actually, I've never seen that snowman before. Try it out," he said.

I was skeptical, but I walked towards the snowman, eyes peeled for any possible trap. Surprisingly, nothing popped out of the shadows, no spikes and no cannons. As the snowman came into view, I noticed more details about it that I had missed. From afar, it looked like a typical snowman, with a carrot nose and button eyes, but as I looked closer, I realized the button eyes were actually moving, seeking me out and fixating on my figure. The mouth, too, twisted into a...smile? I was confused. Nothing in this world so far had ever looked happy. The smile certainly looked genuine, and I couldn't find any hidden malice or evil in its smile. Then again, it was a snowman, and I couldn't read snowman facial expressions very well.

When the snowman began to speak, I wasn't surprised in the slightest. I had met enough talking creatures in this place; a snowman monster was nothing out of the ordinary. And plus, I had already seen it move and smile; of course it was a living creature. However, it's words did shock me, because I certainly wasn't expecting them.

"Please...angel...help me..." Angel? Why was he calling me an angel? Plus, I was almost positive it was a trap, but if the snowman really did need help, I didn't think I could deny him. And we had infinite tries. If this was a trap, we could always just load our save and try again. Suddenly, I realized what the expression of the snowman really was. It was a pained smile, but I hadn't noticed because snowman facial expressions are hard to read. "I'm pretty sure it's not a trap," Flowey said, interrupting my thoughts. "A real trap wouldn't call you the angel." I shot him a confused look. "The angel from the prophecy, remember. It can't be you, you fell down with Chara. And I doubt the prophecy is true, anyways. But the snowman thinks you're the last human. The angel. The savior. A trap would probably call you a human. That snowman must be really desperate. Come on, let's go to it."

I reached the snowman, and it sighed in relief. "Thank you. Please...take a piece of me. Save it from this world. Take it to the surface. And with that piece, rebuild me." Rebuild? I was confused.

"Won't it melt?" I asked, still unsure of the entire situation.

"It is magical. Quickly!" Without hesitation, so pulled off a piece of the snowman, mentally wincing. The snowman smiled, one last time. "Thank you..." Then it slowly faded away, leaving nothing but dust. Wait, dust? From a snowman?

"It's dead," said Flowey, reading my expression. "All dead monsters turn to dust. Put that in your backpack. We still have a lot of work to do. There's no time to waste. We have to stay ahead of Papyrus."

I placed the snowman piece in my backpack, suddenly realizing the symbolism of the gesture. The snowman was counting on me, a tiny 10-year old, to rebuild him on the surface. I didn't even know if I was going to get to the surface, and here was another person counting on me to make it there. That made three, Chara and Flowey being the other two. I could feel an almost physical burden on my shoulders. I had to make it to the surface, even though I wasn't the angel of the prophecy. I had to carry everyone's hopes and dreams. But I had Chara and Flowey with me, and they'd help. So as long as we stayed together, we could do anything. So as long as I held on to my hopes, I believed we could face the king. I believed we could call off the "kill or be killed" rule. It would just take time and determination. And I knew we had a lot of determination.

Before Papyrus could catch up, I quickly ran back to the slippery area, and nearly fell flat on my face. Taking a left turn, I came across what looked like a plain piece of land, with the snow below cleared out. It looked suspiciously like a trap, so even before Flowey told me what to do, I sidled along the side of it. I made sure not to touch any place where the snow had been cleared out, and though it took a lot of effort, I did reach the other side. I wondered briefly what kind of trap it was, but I wasn't willing to risk doing everything over again just for curiosity. I began walking ahead, where I head a faint crunch of leaves somewhere far behind me.

Afraid, I began sprinting, being careful to make as little sound as possible. I didn't dare look back, for fear that I might see Papyrus chasing after me. In my haste, I nearly tripped over a small bridge ahead. It looked just like the other one, unsteady and not stable, but I didn't even bother inspecting it closely. I ran across it, and reached a large snowy area. Ahead looked like two sentry stations. I wondered why there were so many of them around here. There was a relatively large sign in front of the stations, but I didn't even bother to read it. Sentry stations meant enemies, and I was not in the mood for more enemies right now. To my right seemed like a large field with a snowball on one side and a hole on the other. It looked like a game for monster kids, but I was relatively sure there was some kind of trap on it. I dashed around it, not daring to touch the ball or the area. Spikes blocked the way ahead, but they seemed to be deactivated.

I was running so quickly that I didn't even realize it when I ran straight into a dog. It was as tall as my head, and wore a sword and shield on its paws. The sword was pure red, with a black hilt, and the shield was covered in red and black, too. I noticed a Delta Rune on the shield. I wondered to myself how many I had seen so far, and how many more I would see before we reached the king's castle. Its eyes were pure red, and I was filled with absolute terror. It was, by far, the most evil dog I had seen in a while, even scarier than Papyrus.

"That's Lesser Dog," whimpered Flowey. Lesser Dog? If this was lesser, then what were the normal dogs? What was Greater Dog? I didn't have much time to ponder the situation though. My soul appeared in front of me, and I was once again mesmerized by its beauty. Music began playing, a sped up version of dogs barking in a way that sounded almost scary.

I had only a couple seconds to think of what to do. I tried petting the dog, but it expertly dodged my hand and nearly sliced it off with its sword. I realized why dogs like this were part of the Royal Guard: they were menacing, scary, and very strong. I quickly drew my hand back, realizing that kindness probably wasn't the solution here. But before I could come up with any ideas, the dog came at me, slicing with its sword. I ducked and dodged, and wondered where I had gotten all this skill from. Mom hadn't practiced with us; she said it was too dangerous. And Flowey had never tried to fight us, either. But I was moving to either side and dodging like a professional, and I wondered how. Only Chara had this kind of skill. But there wasn't much time to waste. For a moment, Lesser Dog's onslaught paused, and I had time to think.

Suddenly, an idea popped into my head. But there was no way the same trick could possibly work twice. Anyway, it was the best shot I had.

"Look!" I yelled, pointing towards the two dog sheds. "A human!"

"Human?" growled Lesser Dog. Even though he was supposed to be surprised or confused, I couldn't hear either of those characteristics in his voice. It sounded more like a bear growling than a dog barking. There was no time to waste, though. I broke off running at a breakneck speed. My legs were starting to get really tired, but I had a mission to do. I had to reach the end of Snowdin, at least. And hopefully, Chara would escape from Papyrus by then.

At most half a second after I passed the deactivated spikes, they sprung to life, blocking me off from Lesser Dog. Realizing that I was safe, I stopped, panting. I marveled at my luck. Had the spikes sprung up two seconds later or a second sooner, I would be dead, either by spike or by sword. Flowey seemed to agree. "HOW did that work? You are SO lucky! That would have taken me at least ten tries! And you go ahead and do it on your first!" I smirked in response, but internally had no idea how that had worked, either. Anyways, it was time to move on. Hopefully Chara had escaped by now, but I doubted it. I decided to relax my tired muscles and actually walk to the next area.

I spotted the twinkle of a SAVE point up ahead, but before I reached it, I walked across a seemingly normal area with a piece of paper lying on the ground. "Don't touch it," Flowey advised, but I knew that before. I bent down to look at it. It seemed like a regular word search called Junior Jumble. It was clearly made for kids. I ignored it and walked on. I passed a patch of what looked like more deactivated spikes, but these ones didn't spring to life behind me, like the others.

As I approached the SAVE point, I noticed some details that I hadn't seen before. There was a note on the ground, followed by two tables, one with a plate of spaghetti and another with an unplugged microwave. When I reached it, I bent down and read the note. "Please enjoy this spaghetti," it said, in relatively neat handwriting. I didn't need Flowey to tell me not to eat it. The spaghetti was cold, anyways, and seemed stuck to the table. All of the settings on the microwave read "Spaghetti", which I found humorous.

Knowing that eventually Chara and I would meet again, and defeat Papyrus, and head to Waterfall, and—actually, we had a lot of work to do. But knowing that we were eventually going to do it filled me with determination.


End file.
